


Lucky Number

by Life_is_short_and_so_am_I



Category: Lego Ninjago, The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)
Genre: Gen, Great Devourer - Freeform, Kind of an AU I guess?, Movieverse but with show elements, One violent scene (stabbing but not heavily described), and everyone carries lloyd everywhere, and lloyd adopts jay, everyone adopts lloyd, garmadon - Freeform, half angst and half cute, highschool, i literally wrote it in five days instead of like sleeping, ive never done tags before this is hard lol, kjdlaksjfl this was so fun to write, maybe two violent scenes (Lloyd gets a concussion once), movieverse, serpentine - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Life_is_short_and_so_am_I/pseuds/Life_is_short_and_so_am_I
Summary: Lloyd Garmadon is alone.Until he meets someone named Skylor, who's the first person to really see Lloyd as something more than just his last name.Lloyd slowly begins to meet other people, but his life quickly takes a turn for epic as he fights to uncover a hidden plot - the evidence points to the Great Devourer and seven teens step up to protect the City.(I'm bad at summaries forgive me. It's basically a how-they-got-together fic.)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First Ninjago fic but here we go!  
> This is all prewritten, updates should be every day. (This is what happens when I write a oneshot and then get creative lol.)  
> It's kind of a mix of show and movie, between plot and characterization. Some characters lean more toward show personalities, some more toward movie, some are a pretty even mix.  
> (In other words, watch as the kid who's been homeschooled her entire life attempts to write in a high school setting with zero idea how school works.)  
> Hope you guys enjoy!  
> :)

Friday was usually Lloyd’s favorite day of the week. Leave it to jerks like Chen and his friends to ruin the best part of the best day of the week for him, though.  
  
Friday meant school was over for a week - which meant human interaction was over. Which, in turn, meant he could barricade himself inside their tiny apartment for a few precious days before Monday arrived. (Monday is, of course, universally the worst day of the week no matter who you’re related to.)  
  
For some reason, instead of picking himself off the sidewalk, Lloyd continued to sprawl on the concrete and contemplate the pros and cons of each day. Tuesdays sucked because you were already tired from Monday and you only had the rest of the week to look forward to, and Thusdays just dangled freedom in front of you, so…  
  
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been spread-eagled on the pavement in front of Ninjago High yet, but his ribcage still felt shattered so Lloyd frankly didn’t feel like moving. It’d been a long week, okay? And getting up and walking home (for by now he’d missed the bus and finding transportation that wasn’t legally forced to allow him to ride was impossible) sounded like the most monumentally impossible task he could possibly face.  
  
Lloyd rasped out a cough, lungs hitching as he contemplated Wednesdays and which idiot had decided to spell them wrong on purpose for all the world to suffer.  
  
He was occupied wondering where his backpack could have possibly ended up when a car pulled up to the curb and he distantly heard a door slam.  
  
Usually, this would have been enough to spur him into movement, since car = people and people = Lloyd needs to run. But he’d already been pounded once today, and he couldn’t bring his mind to pay attention or care about the quiet footsteps approaching him.  
  
“Um, hello?” Someone said, leaning into his line of sight and blocking the sky from his vision. Lloyd’s (still slightly blurred) eyes caught a flash of vibrant red hair. “What are you doing?” It sounded like a girl.  
  
Lloyd blinked slowly, dredging up the ability to speak. “Dying,” he finally said, deciding on an answer appropriate to how his ribs felt.  
  
“In the middle of the school sidewalk?” she asked, voice edged with a bit of snark.  
  
“Is comfortable,” he mumbled, wondering who would have possibly driven _back_ to school on a Friday afternoon just to torment him further.  
  
“Okay…” her voice trailed off. “Have fun.”  
  
Footstep noises wandered in the vague direction of the school, leaving Lloyd’s head spinning more than before.  
  
  
  
Ok, so, he’d met a _few_ people who didn’t immediately hate him because of his dad - like the guy who owned their apartment complex or that weird old lady with the tea shop but it was _really uncommon._ Like, uncommon enough to draw Lloyd out of his weekday debate and into ponderings about the mysterious red blur.  
  
Because, she hadn’t even, like, stepped on his hand when she walked past. He was pretty sure she’d gone out of her way to walk _around_ him, not to mention talking to him, so. It was just weird.  
  
It was even weirder when she came back and something hit the ground next to him. Lloyd would be lying if said he didn’t jump a little at the sudden _smack._ Perhaps she’d changed her mind about beating him up?  
  
“I found this in the bushes,” she said drily. “You want a ride home?”  
  
Aw, man, now he was hearing things. His mom told him if he ever started hallucinating or hearing things again he needed to come home so she could help him, so he should probably start-  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Lloyd jolted upright, shocked back into some kind of alertness by her sharp tone. Had he just been sitting in the middle of the sidewalk? Why would he do that?!  
  
Suddenly he noticed that his backpack had miraculously reappeared and was sitting on the ground next to him. Even though his vision was fuzzy and his head ached, he was pretty sure that’s what he saw.  
  
“Do you need a ride home?” the girl asked again.  
  
Ah - Lloyd knew what she was doing. Setting him up for some kind of prank. She’d ditch him in an alley or something. Maybe she was helping Chen? Could Chen possibly want to beat Lloyd up twice in one day?  
  
“U-um, n-no,” he stuttered, suddenly unable to remember how to stand up. His ribs barked in protest as he snagged his bag with one hand and tried to balance himself with the other.  
  
He heard a kind of exasperated huff. The strange red-haired girl proceeded, without further ceremony, to pick him up (bag and all) and deposit him in the passenger seat of her car, leaving Lloyd blinking in surprise.  
  
His brain kicked back into gear about when she did the same to her car, and Lloyd’s heart rate promptly skyrocketed in an attempt to give him a heart attack. He distractedly wondered if even his heart had decided to gang up on him today.  
  
Lloyd finally turned and got a good look at this baffling-and-probably-malevolent stranger. She had red hair, tied back in a tight ponytail, slanted eyes that were kinda pretty, and a loose orange t-shirt that looked way too big for her.  
  
She probably had a good foot of height on him and she was adeptly slamming the car into third gear as he swallowed nervously, slouched lower in the seat without bothering to put a seatbelt on.  
  
“It’s Lloyd, right?” she asked as they slowed for a stop sign. She glanced away from him, checking traffic before crossing the street.  
  
“Um. Yes,” he said, knowing full well that she knew exactly who he was and was probably contemplating where to murder him. How did he end up in this situation again?!?  
  
She didn’t offer any further conversation as they pulled through a drive-thru and then merged onto one of the larger roads.  
  
Lloyd resigned himself to his fate, staring at the roof of her car and blinking slowly.  
  
Ugh, this Friday was going to suck, and then he’d have to wait a whole week until the next one.  
  
He was only vaguely paying attention to her as she messed with her phone during a red light, probably looking up how to hide bodies or something. Lloyd supposed that was a rather morbid assumption but at least he wouldn’t be surprised. Hopefully.  
  
Instead, she pulled to a stop in front of… his apartment building?  
  
“Out,” she simply said, handing him his bag. Lloyd’s ribs ground in anticipation of moving and his head spun a little harder.  
  
The redhead narrowed her eyes at his slow reaction and set his backpack in his lap before shoving open her door and turning off her car.  
  
Great, he’s blown it, maybe she hadn’t been planning to beat him up but _now_ she would-  
  
Once again, she effectively gave him a heart attack and shocked him as she scooped up him, his backpack, and something else, stomping through the doors. Lloyd could’ve sworn he _heard_ her roll her eyes.  
  
By the time his brain caught up with reality, (eta ten seconds,) she was standing in his elevator and carrying him like a baby.  
  
Despite being the single most hated teen in Ninjago, he had enough self-respect to be utterly embarrassed when he realized what was going on, prompting him to squawk in surprise and then flail to the floor. (Actually, that was pretty embarrassing too.)  
  
She snorted softly as he reached up a shaky hand from the floor to press the right button and he spent the twenty-seven most awkward seconds of his life in that pregnant elevator silence with her.  
  
When the elevator made a noise entirely too cheery, announcing his floor, Lloyd glued his eyes to the floor, too slow to get up as the girl hauled him to his feet, shoved him down the hall until he mutely pointed to his door, and handed him his backpack so he could fish out his keys.  
  
Once he fumbled the door open, she unceremoniously shoved something into his arms, flashed an amused smile at him, and sauntered away, hands in the pockets of her jeans.  
  
Lloyd blinked in surprise, wondering if he was going crazy.  
  
The rest of his senses remembered how to function and he caught a whiff of something delicious. Looking down into his hands, nestled on top of a green backpack, was a Chen’s Noodle House takeout bag.  
  
Lloyd tilted his head in confusion, because on the edge of the paper pag was a number, with a short message penciled in next to it - _For if you ever need anything._

  
  
His mom was working late again that night, so Lloyd ended up eating Chen’s Takeout (which he had to admit was awesome since walking or cooking sounded like a nightmare.) He took a shower, sighed at the purple bruises dotting his ribs, and dug through their freezer for some of their massive collection of ice packs. Retreating to his room, he wished once again for an actual door and collapsed on the bed.  
  
Arranging the ice packs didn’t take long and by the time he was done he was freezing and shivering but at least his ribs didn’t ache so much, so that was a plus.  
  
Lloyd entertained thoughts of doing his homework for about three seconds before deciding that was futile and instead just stared at the ceiling, waiting for the Tylenoil to kick in.

  


When he woke up, his bed was soaked. So was his sweatshirt, the top half of his pants, his hair, and pretty much everything around him.  
  
Lloyd threw his head back and groaned dramatically (albeit quietly.) He’d fallen asleep with the ice packs and they’d all melted and dripped condensation _everywhere._  
  
“Good morning!” He heard his mom chirping from the other side of the apartment. Of course she knew he was awake, his room was literally sectioned off with curtains…  
  
He shook his head, gathering up an armful of gross melted icepacks, and walked into the kitchen. He made sure to wait until his mom ducked into her room before hastily depositing them in the freezer, rushing so as not to let her see them. His mom didn’t need yet another thing to worry about.  
  
At least his ribs didn’t hurt so bad - it was more sore now. He could walk it off.  
  
“Morning!” His mom sang again from the door as she balanced on one leg to put a shoe on.  
  
“Morning,” he replied, wincing at his voice. He sounded like the dead.  
  
“Late night?” she asked, smiling.  
  
“Um, yeah,” he mumbled, sticking his head under the sink and turning on the water. Water immediately fountained into his thick blond hair, snapping him into full wakefulness.  
  
Koko raised an eyebrow as he emerged from the sink dripping on the floor. “I’m cleaning that up,” he promised as she stepped around the puddle to find herself breakfast.  
  
Lloyd shook his head briskly, sending water everywhere, grinning at his mom as she jumped.  
  
“Bye honey,” she said, snagging an orange and her purse and heading for the door. Lloyd stumbled a bit in his haste but he caught her in time to hug her goodbye, prompting a fond grin despite his soaking hair (and clothes.)  
  
“Bye mom, love you,” he called as she closed the door with a little wave.  
  
Lloyd took a deep breath before heading to the shower to wash the ice pack yuckiness away.  
  
He decided to amend his previous conclusion that Friday was the best day of the week. It was obviously Saturday. Nothing was as heartening as waking up and knowing that you had two whole days of break. Sunday was the downhill slope towards Monday and terror, but Saturday was the first breath of fresh air.  
  
Lloyd rolled his eyes at his own dramatic thoughts as he flopped on the couch with his math textbook, brain already hurting at the prospect of algebra.  
  
School sucked in more ways then one. Not just the regular bullying and scorn and hatred from the students, but the ridiculously high standards the teachers held him to. Being the son of Garmadon meant that he’d basically already committed every crime possible by existing, (somehow,) so Lloyd worked extra hard to keep his grades perfect. (He mostly chose to focus on the optimism angle - how much his mom liked seeing those reluctantly-granted As on his report card, rather than what might happen if his grades ever dropped.)  
  
So he suffered through math, and then science, and then history, (boy was that an awkward class since every other monument in the books was marked ‘destroyed in a Garmadon attack’), and then his brain decided to die so he read comics for a bit. After that he worked through the rest of his homework, and he finished around noon, which meant he was finally free until Monday morning.  
  
Usually this was the part of the weekend when kids went and hung out with their friends. (Lloyd guessed. He didn’t actually have any experience with this phenomenon.) But Lloyd usually spent the better part of the weekends holed up in the apartment relishing the quiet and the safety of being blessedly alone. (It was lonely, but Lloyd was used to it.)  
  
Video games and Starfarer comics were a great way to spend the weekend anyways. 

  


Sunday morning saw Lloyd in his Uncle Wu’s warehouse, training in martial arts like he had been for a few years now. (He thought they’d decided he needed it after Chen broke his wrist in three places a few summers ago, but he had yet to use any of his moves in defense.)  
  
He actually really enjoyed their weekend training sessions, for one because it meant he got to spend more time with his Uncle, who was usually busy defending the city from his dad. And martial arts was the only thing he really enjoyed besides video games and comics, since sports or after-school clubs were out of the question for someone like him. Also, it was a good way to get rid of some of the hurt he couldn’t take out elsewhere.  
  
His mom only had every other Sunday off, so he ate dinner alone in their apartment, trying to stave off feelings of oncoming dread regarding the school week looming over his head.  
  
Unbidden his thoughts strayed back to the girl with the red hair - he’d never even asked her her name, which in hindsight was kinda rude since she both drove him home and bought him dinner.  
  
After a few long minutes of contemplation, Lloyd dug the bag with her number on it out and typed it into his phone, stalwartly ignoring the ridiculous tremble in his fingers.  
  
He only got up the nerve to say one thing -  
  
_Thanks._

  
  
Funny how, even though he’d spent all fifteen years of his lonely life shunned by other kids, the minute someone glanced in his direction (for reasons other than being mean) Lloyd was suddenly a disaster.  
  
By the time he’d survived the bus ride, ignoring crumpled up paper balls and loudly-whispered insults, he decided that it was probably a one-time thing and he almost definitely shouldn’t get his hopes up and it’d probably just be best if he avoided the tall woman who’d literally carried him into his apartment building last Friday. (Because FSM that was embarrassing.)  
  
The school was as crowded and chaotic and loud as ever, except for the bubble of empty space constantly following Lloyd and the angry glares pointed in his direction. By now he was an expert at tuning all that out (or so he told himself) and Lloyd quickly found his locker. (Which was, as usual, full of hateful notes. Geez, it was the first day of the week, where did these idiots find the time?!)  
  
Taking a very deep breath to ground himself, Lloyd headed to his first class.  
  
It wasn’t like he was looking out for her or anything, but it’s pretty hard to miss a girl that tall with hair that color. Lloyd glimpsed her a few times throughout the morning and usually steered in the opposite direction. He noticed she was usually walking alone - again, not because he was actively looking for her or anything. Just by chance.  
  
Lunch came - usually the worst part of the day. Nothing like an unstructured period of time that gave people plenty of time to seek him out without a teacher interfering. (Not that they ever did, but still.)  
  
Lloyd got the unique opportunity to experience cardiac arrest that day though, when the red haired girl from Friday plopped down at his completely empty table holding a tray.  
  
“Sup,” she said, leaning back and ripping open a package loudly, pointedly ignoring the curious stares and suspicious frowns aimed her way.  
  
Lloyd made a sound that wasn’t a word - it might not have even been human actually. He slumped down in his chair, wondering if he could phase through the floor and disappear.  
  
“Dude, chill,” she advised. “I’m not going to murder you.”  
  
“Um,” he said, in a true example of his vocal eloquence.  
  
She snorted, looking amused. “I’m Skylor,” she said, sticking a hand out.  
  
Lloyd stared at it, wondering what she was doing.  
  
Oh! Um, was she trying to shake his hand?  
  
After a few moments, since he didn’t want to be rude, he slowly fit his palm against hers and shook, half wondering if she had one of those shocky things hidden in her fingers.  
  
A few extremely awkward seconds later, without any electrical mishaps, she shot him a grin that reminded him a bit of a cat - smug and sure of its prey.  
  
He swallowed, cursing his brain for that train of thought.  
  
“Nice to meet you, S-skylor,” he managed, relieved that he only faltered once. In his defense, he was pretty sure this was the first time he’d met someone on supposedly friendly terms in years, so he was out of practice. (He’d never been _in_ practice but whatever.)  
  
Five minutes of loaded silence later, Lloyd was pretty sure he’d rather be literally anywhere than this, except maybe alone in a hallway with Chen again.  
  
However, Skylor either didn’t enjoy talking or sensed that if she tried to make conversation with him he’d combust and die, so she didn’t say anything else for the duration of lunch.  
  
Lloyd spent the rest of the day waiting for her to corner him so the _‘here’s why you suck’_ speech could come out - the _‘your dad put my dad in the hospital’_ one or the _‘Garmadon destroyed my uncle’s store again’_ one, but it never came.  
  
This honestly left him feeling more jittery and worried than usual, which was saying something.  
  
He actually made it through the whole day unharmed (he’d taken evasive maneuvers after English when he spotted Chen on the stairs looking for someone) and he even caught the bus, which meant he’d be home before dark.  
  
All in all, Lloyd counted it a good day.

  


He should have known that good luck on Monday meant bad luck on Tuesday, but he’d kinda been busy short-circuiting thanks to Skylor’s baffling behavior.  
  
Lloyd had barely made it through his first class when the Garmadon Alarm went off, helpfully signalling that his dad was once again attacking the city with his army.  
  
As soon as the alarm listed the districts under attack, Lloyd paled as he realized one of them was the school district he was in now. Which meant he needed to get gone _now,_ before someone got ideas about beating him up. Everyone always turned pretty sour after one of the attacks.  
  
So while his classmates were duck-and-covering, Lloyd was booking it for home. Since Garmadon was so close school would close for the rest of the day anyways, and it wasn’t like any of his teachers would really care, they’d probably be glad to get rid of him actually-  
  
Lloyd nearly choked as a hand closed on the hood of his hoodie, yanking him out of his almost-running pace.  
  
_Great,_ his brain squeaked in terror as he coughed.  
  
“Where ya goin, Garmadork?” Chen asked, teeth clenched.  
  
“Out,” Lloyd mumbled, tugging sharply on his hood.  
  
Chen punched him in the face - Lloyd tried to duck and only half succeeded. Instead of taking it in the mouth, he took it in the eye, which debatably hurt even more.  
  
_Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it,_ he reminded himself quickly as the urge to defend himself arose. He knew that was what Chen wanted anyways.  
  
Last time he’d tried to fight back against Chen, he’d been suspended for two months for “brutally attacking a fellow student,” when _everyone_ who knew _anything_ about anything knew Chen when after Lloyd with regularity.  
  
That had been two years ago and he wouldn’t let it happen again.  
  
So instead of indulging his desire to break Chen’s nose, Lloyd absorbed the fist and took the chance to wrench his hoodie out of Chen’s grasp and break into a run.  
  
Luckily for Lloyd, despite his unfortunate height, he was pretty fast, so he beat Chen to the doors and burst out them, dashing down the stairs outside the school and taking off towards his apartment, where he’d need to hide for as long as possible.  
  
He could both see and hear Garmadon’s attack, complete with shark mechs and fish-costumed soldiers. Lloyd also knew that somewhere, his Uncle Wu was facing off against Garmadon in order to chase him back to his volcano base.  
  
But he concentrated on avoiding the soldiers and finding his apartment.  
  
He made it home in less than half an hour, out of breath and with his left eye effectively swollen shut.  
  
Slamming the door a little (only half on accident) Lloyd collapsed on the couch, chest heaving for air. He gritted his teeth against a sudden swell of anger - at Chen, for giving him an injury he couldn’t hide from his mom, at his stupid teachers for letting Chen get away with everything, and mostly at his dad for being the problem in the first place.  
  
Slowly sitting up and sighing, Lloyd made his way to the freezer once again, fishing out an ice pack and wrapping it in a towel before returning to the couch and laying down.  
  
He went ahead and flicked the TV on, going to the news channel that always covered Garmadon’s attacks. Lloyd saw a little Wu flipping around a large shark mech manned by a little Garmadon, and though the mics couldn’t pick up their words, Lloyd knew Wu and Garmadon were probably arguing. His dad was always ready to insult Wu with his dubiously rude insults.  
  
This invasion lasted a little longer than usual - almost a whole hour. Finally Uncle Wu managed to somehow get inside the mech’s cockpit and punch his brother in the face before smashing some controls. Garmadon, in typical fashion, called for a retreat before hollering the usual spiel about “I’ll be back!!” that even the news team’s mics could pick up.  
  
Lloyd flicked the TV off and leaned his head back, sighing.  
  
When his phone vibrated, he wasn’t surprised. His mom usually texted him to make sure he was okay after attacks, it wasn’t anything unusual.  
  
Only, when he opened his phone, the message wasn’t from his mom’s number - it was from the one of the only other numbers he’d ever put in the device.  
  
_**Ambrr:** hey r u ok?_  
  
Lloyd blinked in surprise, wondering briefly who was texting him before he remembered - Skylor, who was possibly setting him up for a hard fall but maybe also actually trying to be friendly.  
  
_**Lloyd:** yeah_  
  
He mulled it over a minute, trying to figure out what else you were supposed to say in this situation… oh, yeah.  
  
_**Lloyd:** how about you?_  
  
_**Ambrr:** omw home rn_  
  
_**Ambrr:** they closed school until tomorrow_  
  
Lloyd stared at the screen for a minute, once again wracking his brains for an appropriate response. In usual Lloyd eloquence, he replied,  
  
_**Lloyd:** k_  
  
Deciding that was all the texting his spazzy brain could handle, and praying she wouldn’t prompt further conversation, Lloyd switched to texting his mom to let her know he was alright. Relatively alright, he thought ruefully as his eye throbbed.

  
  
The next day at lunch, Skylor once again plopped down at Lloyd’s table. To his credit, he only jumped about half as high this time.  
  
“Hi,” she said, stopping short as she caught sight of his face.  
  
For some reason, Lloyd felt like disappearing for a new reason this time - it reminded him of why he liked to gloss over injuries whenever possible for his mom. (Last night had sure been fun. Stupid black eye.) Once again he slouched in his chair, tucking his chin into his hood.  
  
“You should quit rolling over for him,” she said unexpectedly.  
  
“Yeah, right,” he mumbled bitterly. “Maybe they’ll just go all the way and expel me this time. I’m sure they’d love an excuse.”  
  
Skylor tilted her head, about to say something else.  
  
“It’s fine anyways,” he cut her off quickly.  
  
“I can beat him up for you,” she offered suddenly.  
  
Lloyd raised an eyebrow, eyeing her physique. Yeah, she probably _could_ beat Chen up.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled, glaring at the table.  
  
“Mmm,” she responded, taking a bite out of a sandwich.  
  
For some reason, that day’s lunch seemed barely as tense as Monday’s.

  


Thursday rolled around, bringing two pop quizzes that Lloyd was pretty sure his teachers invented from pure spite. Not that he had done badly, he thought, but pop quizzes always sucked regardless of the difficulty level.  
  
Skylor and Lloyd only shared one class, since they were in different grades. Art was a class often taken by several grades at once. It was also probably Lloyd’s favorite class, even though he often ended up with paint in his hair or something.  
  
Skylor wasn’t a half-bad artist, he determined. Better than some kids for sure. She sat next to him anyways, and when some skinny black-haired kid siddled a little too close holding a thick black sharpie, she glanced casually in his direction.  
  
The kid abruptly corrected his course and Lloyd couldn’t help but give a disbelieving little breathless laugh.  
  
Okay, so Lloyd was warming up to Skylor pretty quickly. What, she was nice, and _nobody_ was nice to him, and it was a really cool change of pace from the norm of dirty glares and muttered insults. He really, really hoped she wasn’t tricking him or something because if she was that would suck majorly.  
  
Lunch rolled around Lloyd didn’t even jump in shock when Skylor appeared at his table. She smirked her hello and tossed him a sharpie and they doodled little cats on the already-extremely-vandalized table. (As far as he was concerned, at this point, she was pretty great. Because cats were awesome, this fact could not be denied by anyone.)  
  
He was still a little wary of her intentions, but he really, _really_ wanted this to be real, so Lloyd wasn’t as guarded as he probably should have been.  
  
Friday came again, and Lloyd finally got to look forward to the peace and safety of the weekend. This was his mom’s Sunday off too, which meant board games and family time, which he desperately loved.  
  
Friday was mostly good. Some jerk stole his backpack and it took him forever to chase it down and he was late to history and got detention, which sucked and meant he was walking home, but other than that it was fine.  
  
“I’m home,” he announced as he closed the door, even though he was fairly sure his mom had heard him coming. She was in the kitchen ironing (since the kitchen was the only place big enough for their rickety ironing board.)  
  
“Hi honey,” she said.  
  
He dumped his backpack on the couch and submitted himself to a forehead smooch, pretending to be grossed out even though she knew he liked it.  
  
“How was school?” she asked, like she did every time she was home when he got back.  
  
Lloyd considered the question for a moment, before grinning and responding, “good.”  
  
His mom glanced up from her shirt, eyebrows cocked. “Good?” she asked hopefully.  
  
“Yeah,” he admitted. Hoping he wasn’t jinxing himself by admitting it out loud, he said, “I think I made a friend.”  
  
In defense of his awesome mom, Koko only jolted a little in delighted surprise.  
  
“Yes?” she asked curiously.  
  
“Yeah, she’s really nice,” Lloyd said, shoving his hands in his pockets.  
  
“Oooooh, it’s a she?!” his mom teased, causing him to flush brighter than the bright red of her iron.  
  
“MOM,” he protested, enormously disconcerted, “She’s a billion years older than me-”  
  
“Which translates to a grade above you,” he mom teased.  
  
“-and we only met a few days ago and she’s taller than me anyways, and I have homework so bye!” Lloyd beat a hasty retreat, cheeks burning, as his mom chuckled behind him.  
  
He did actually have homework, and if he did it tonight he could have more free time tomorrow, so Lloyd went ahead and suffered through algebra worksheets and a science essay and everything else.  
  
Homework accomplished, Lloyd headed into the kitchen since it was his night to make dinner. Luckily his mom had taught him enough about cooking by now for him to be a pretty decent cook.  
  
Lloyd and Koko spent the rest of the evening curled up together on the couch with cocoa, watching a documentary about seahorses that was actually pretty cool. 

  


Lloyd spent the majority of that Saturday with Uncle Wu, mostly doing more martial arts training but working on his meditation a little bit too. (Uncle Wu was pretty adamant about the meditation thing and Lloyd didn’t want to upset him. Plus it actually wasn’t half bad.)  
  
Garmadon attacked again that day, and Wu warned Lloyd to wait in the warehouse and to _please don’t go anywhere,_ so Lloyd stayed put like his uncle wanted. (Mostly. The roof of the warehouse had a better view and he technically didn’t leave, so.)  
  
“Hello, nephew,” his uncle said, materializing next to him on the roof once he’d finished the fight.  
  
“Augh!” Lloyd jumped a bit, biting back a louder shout.  
  
Wu chuckled a bit at Lloyd’s unamused look.  
  
“You good?” Lloyd asked after a second, as he usually did when Wu finished fighting Garmadon.  
  
“Of course,” Wu responded, as if the idea of his brother injuring him was preposterous. (Which it wasn't actually, last fall Wu broke his ankle twice and had to use magic healing tea to recover.)  
  
“You know,” Lloyd said carefully. “I bet it would sure be easier to fight Garmadon if you had a sidekick.”  
  
Wu raised an eyebrow. “We’ve spoken about this before,” he reminded Lloyd.  
  
“I know, I know,” Lloyd said. “But you never know when it might be nice to have someone watching your back.”  
  
“It would be wrong of me to let you fight your own father,” Wu said slowly, almost reluctantly. (Or Lloyd thought it was reluctance. It might have been something else?)  
  
Lloyd sighed a little, unable to deny that a chance to get back at least a _little_ at his dad sounded great. But Master Wu was pretty much the most stubborn guy Lloyd knew, once he made a choice that was it.  
  
So Lloyd let it go. 

  


Sunday was great. He and his mom spent the whole day together, playing Monopoly and Scrabble, both long and entertaining. (Koko trashed Lloyd in Scrabble but he got her back during Monopoly, thoroughly bankrupting her.)  
  
Days like that were what gave Lloyd the strength to make it through awful school weeks and random shoves in the hall and people who swerved around him on the sidewalk and unfair treatment from the school staff.  
  
His mom, at least, was always there for him, and loved him.  
  
Koko saw the _Lloyd_ and not the _Garmadon._  
  
But Lloyd was starting to think that maybe someone else saw him now too.

  
  
Wednesday found Lloyd collapsed on the lunch table, head covered by his hoodie and face buried in his arms.  
  
Someone had shoved him into a locker this morning, and the janitor never let him out, so Lloyd was stuck there for like two hours before some poor random girl opened the door and screamed her head off. So that was a great way to start the morning. After that someone had shoved him in the hall and he’d tripped over something and fallen, which did wonders for his backbone. And to top it all off, while he was laying on the floor struggling to catch his wind, someone had stepped on his hand and it _hurt._ (Geez, were they wearing steel high heels?!)  
  
So by the time lunch rolled around Lloyd was considering just hiding in the janitor’s closet until school was over since he’d already missed half his classes anyways. Which, he knew he’d catch plenty of flack and makeup work for.  
  
Skylor slid into her usual spot across from him, probably wondering if he was conscious. (Lloyd was unclear on that fact himself.)  
  
“You ok?” she asked, sounding doubtful.  
  
“Fine,” he mumbled, but it came out a little strangled.  
  
“Yeah, I bet,” she snarked. Lloyd thought she sounded a little worried anyways, and he tried to subtly shift so his hand was hidden under which hoodie sleeves. (Which, by the way, ouch, that hurt.)  
  
Unfortunately, Skylor never missed a trick and she caught the movement, dragging his hand out to inspect it.  
  
“Geez,” she mumbled, gently holding his wrist. (But keeping a firm enough grip to keep him from pulling it back.) “What happened?” she asked.  
  
“Someone stepped on me,” he muttered.  
  
“Ouch,” she winced in sympathy. “You want some ice or something?”  
  
“No,” Lloyd mumbled, despite very much wanting ice and being very much unable to ask the lunch ladies for any.  
  
“Uh huh,” Skylor said, shoving off the table and walking away.  
  
Lloyd groaned but had to admit it was nice of her. Skylor extricated her sandwich from its plastic bag, dumped the ice inside, and offered it to him. He blew a huffy breath out his nose and finally lifted his head off the table to give her a bleakly thankful grin in return.  
  
“Y’know,” she said amiably, after a few moments of silence. “I kinda understand what you’re going through.”  
  
_Yeah, right, I bet you do,_ he thought uncharitably. However, he kept that opinion to himself since she was literally the only person who liked him. (Besides his mom.)  
  
“My dad’s a convict,” she offered quietly. “He got caught four or five years ago. He led a criminal cultist ring.”  
  
Lloyd lifted his head back up, interest piqued.  
  
“It was all over the news,” she recalled, eyes a little dark. “Suddenly everyone was scared of me, because he was my dad, and he was the only person I had around, and everybody could only see his name tacked after mine.”  
  
Lloyd blinked in sympathy - he really, _really_ understood what _that_ was like.  
  
“So, y’know,” she mumbled, suddenly at a loss for words, which Skylor never was. “I know it's a little different, but I kinda get how it is.”  
  
“Thanks,” Lloyd rasped after a minute. “I’m...sorry about your dad.”  
  
“Yeah, me too,” she mumbled. “Yours too.”  
  
“Dads kinda suck,” Lloyd decided, eyes straying to his swollen hand.  
  
“A little,” Skylor agreed. “Are you sure nothing’s broken in your hand?”  
  
“Pretty sure,” he said. “I’ve broken stuff before, this isn’t quite as bad.”  
  
“Dude,” she laughed a little, a breathy sort of laugh that was a little sad. “Every other word out of your mouth horrifies me.”  
  
Lloyd mumbled something indiscernible and Skylor rolled her eyes.  
  
Lunch was over and they stood, neither wishing to be late to a class. “Stay safe,” Skylor cautioned with a small smile.  
  
“Pfft, of course,” Lloyd joked, waving his good hand.  
  
“And remember my offer about punching people, it still stands!” she tossed after him as he made his way to class.

  


_**Ambrr:** hey do you want to do something this afternoon?_  
  
Lloyd tried to calm himself down a little before replying, lest he reveal his inexperience.  
  
_**Lloyd:** sure, did you have something in mind?_  
  
_**Ambrr:** I work at Chen’s Noodle House, you want some on the house desert samples?_  
  
Lloyd wondered how she discovered his weakness for sugar.  
  
_**Lloyd:** That sounds awesome! I can pay tho_  
  
_**Ambrr:** Nah it’s fine I sort of own Chen’s_  
  
_**Lloyd:** WHAAAAAAT?_  
  
_**Lloyd:** No way!!_  
  
_**Ambrr:** Yeah my dad started it as a coverup for his gang stuff and now that he’s in prison my aunt is managing it for me until I’m a legal adult._  
  
_**Ambrr:** so i get free food whenever I want :D_  
  
Lloyd couldn’t help but grin.  
  
_**Lloyd:** When do you want to meet and which Noodle House do you have in mind?_

__

____

__

  


__

____

__

“Okay, I have to admit it’s pretty cool that you own the whole chain,” Lloyd grinned at Skylor.  
  
They were squished into a corner booth in the back of a less-popular Noodle House, which gave them pretty high chances of going unrecognized and therefore unbothered.  
  
“Yeah, kinda,” she admitted, balancing a chopstick on the tip of her finger.  
  
“I mean, college tuition in the bag,” Lloyd pointed out.  
  
“That’s true,” Skylor agreed. “Not sure I’m going to college though.”  
  
“Yeah?” Lloyd asked, deciding to ignore his own feelings about college. (He really wanted to go but he’d never get in. Unlike high school, colleges could turn him away.) “What do you want to do instead?”  
  
“Something fighty,” she said. “You know, something exciting.”  
  
“Fight-y?” Lloyd raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Martial arts,” Skylor smirked, flexing to prove her point. “Mostly jujitsu.”  
  
“Ha!” Lloyd laughed, almost competitively. “Me too. But I’ve been learning spinjitzu with my uncle too.”  
  
Skylor tilted her head for a moment, remembering who Lloyd’s uncle _was._ She grinned, looking like a cat again. “That’s pretty good, but I’ve been training since I was seven. I bet I could take you.”  
  
Lloyd barked a laugh. “Oh, I know you did _not_ just challenge me.”  
  
“Bring it,” Skylor smirked, “mister I-Know-Spinjitzu.”

__

____

__

  


__

____

__

Skylor and Lloyd snuck into an abandoned shipping warehouse near the docks for some sparring matches. Unfortunately for Lloyd’s pride (which at this rate would never recover from Skylor) she wiped the floor with him.  
  
After, they huffed for breath, flopped on the edge of a rickety dock that jutted into the sea.  
“That was pretty fun,” Skylor said.  
  
“Yeah,” Lloyd agreed. “I’ve only ever trained with Uncle Wu.”  
  
“Nice to have someone else around to kick your butt, huh?” Skylor smirked.  
  
“You only barely won the last one,” he groused.  
  
“I suppose,” Skylor conceded in a way that made it obvious she considered herself indisputable champion.  
  
Lloyd’s phone buzzed - his mom, wondering where he was.  
  
“I gotta go,” he said after a second.  
  
“Alight,” Skylor said, waving her goodbye.  
  
“See you Monday.”

__

____

__


	2. Chapter 2

Things were really looking up for Lloyd lately.  
  
He and Skylor had been hanging out for a few months now.  
  
Skylor was nice - Lloyd had decided a long time ago that she was for real and would stick around. She didn’t mind when people started hating on her too just because she hung out with him, she didn’t mind extra scrutiny from the teachers, and with her around at lunch Lloyd had had two straight months of the safest, calmest lunch periods ever. Best of all, like his mom, Skylor saw Lloyd for Lloyd and not for Garmadon.  
  
It even kind of seemed like he was getting beat up with less regularity, which was another new addition to his life and one he found he _really_ liked.  
  
Of course, he still came home with cuts and bruises and black eyes, and he’d needed stitches once five weeks ago, but overall things were going good.  
  
Lloyd and Skylor were walking - running, really - through the halls to get to art class on time. Actually, scratch that, they were already late, as evidenced by the empty halls surrounding them. Someone had dumped an entire water bottle on the two of them at lunch in spite, drenching their food and table.  
  
Lloyd groaned inwardly, knowing that that probably meant he’d get detention, but kept moving quickly anyways. He actually liked art and didn’t want to miss any more than he already had.  
  
Voices echoed around the corner ahead; they sounded angry and one of them was familiar enough to cause Lloyd to grind to a sudden halt - that was Chen up ahead.  
  
Unfortunately, this was the way to art class and there wasn’t any other path to take, which meant he’d… have to go right past Chen, who already sounded mad.  
  
“I _said,_ get your _hands_ off my _sister,_ you-”  
  
Lloyd paled at the rest of the shouted words and Skylor glanced over at him before swiftly turning the corner. Lloyd swallowed his fear and followed her - he needed to get past Chen anyways, and even if he got beat up, he wasn’t gonna be a _baby_ about it.  
  
Chen and another guy - Clem? Clouse? - were facing off with a guy Lloyd didn’t really recognize. (Of course, he always stared at the floor so if he was gonna recognize the guy it’d be by his shoes, not his face, which was actually pretty memorable; one eye was crossed with what looked like an old scar.) Next to the boy stood a black haired girl with an angry look on her face.  
  
“Sup, Chen,” Skylor greeted, arms folded and one eyebrow raised. (Lloyd had to admire her bravery.) He wasn’t hiding behind her, but Lloyd was definitely off to the side. Hopefully Chen was occupied enough to ignore him. “Busy bothering someone new?”  
  
“Shove off, noodle girl,” Chen snarked. Lloyd couldn’t help but bristle on Skylor’s behalf at that - Chen bullying him was one thing, but Lloyd wouldn’t let him bother Skylor too.  
  
“Shut up, Chen,” he snapped, surprising himself. (And everyone else, probably.)  
  
“Watch it, Garmadon,” Chen replied just as angrily. “You never know when your girlfriend won’t be around to protect you.”  
  
Lloyd and Skylor both turned red enough to combust - Lloyd in mortification and Skylor in anger.  
  
“Ignore him,” the black haired girl snarked. “He’s just upset ‘cause anybody with half a brain refuses to date him.”  
  
Chen glared at her, took half a step forward, and hurriedly retreated as the guy Lloyd didn’t know jumped in front of the girl (presumably his sister) threateningly.  
  
“Look, Chen, you’re outnumbered and everyone knows you only fight when you have the advantage, so shove off and save us all some time,” Skylor said with forced carelessness, inspecting a nail.  
  
Chen narrowed his eyes and Lloyd would be lying if he said he didn’t get scared at the look. He definitely recognized it - Chen got that look when somebody insulted him, and it usually meant-  
  
_Crack!_  
  
Chen’s fist shot out, crashing into the black-haired girl’s face. She shouted, but she sounded more angry than hurt.  
  
However, her own ire didn’t hold a candle to her brother’s, because as soon as the bully’s fist connected with the girl’s jaw, the boy was tackling him to the ground, attacking viciously. The two boys rolled around on the ground a bit, both grappling for a better hold. It looked like Chen was losing, to Lloyd’s reluctantly-admitted delight.  
  
Unfortunately, the sudden outburst drew the attention of an adult somewhere nearby, and the man gruffly pulled both boys apart. Chen, sporting a split lip and a black eye, glared with unconcealed hatred at the boy with the eye-scar. The boy glared right back, spitting out another fowl word aimed at Chen.  
  
Both boys were hauled off to the principal's office within minutes, leaving the black haired girl, Skylor, and Lloyd in the hall together. Chen’s accomplice was booking it in the direction of the library.  
  
All three looked at each other, realized how late they were, and rushed to make it to their classes.  
  
The black haired girl actually was headed to art too, so they slipped into the back of the classroom and somehow managed to go without notice. (Score! That meant no detention.)  
  
“Thanks,” she said, rubbing her jaw with one hand while grabbing some charcoal with the other.  
  
“No problem,” Skylor said. “Chen’s a jerk.”  
  
Lloyd subtly tried to shift back - it looked like the girl was planning on having a conversation with Skylor, and he didn’t want to ruin it for her, which he would if he stayed long enough for the stranger to recognize him, so he should probably-  
  
“I’m Skylor, this is Lloyd,” Skylor said, ruining any chance of that particular plan. Skylor was looking at the black haired girl as if daring her to say a work about Lloyd.  
  
In turn, the new girl simply glanced at Lloyd for a moment, tilted her head a little, and jabbed a finger towards herself. “I’m Nya,” she said. “Nice to meet you both.”  
  
Weird, but whatever.  
  
“What was Chen doing bothering you anyways?” Skylor asked, keeping her voice low so as not to bring the teacher over.  
  
“Ugh,” Nya snorted. “He was hitting on me and Kai wasn’t having it. I keep telling Kai I can take care of myself, but he’s pretty protective.” Despite her words, Lloyd saw a deep fondness on her face.  
  
“Ew,” Skylor said sympathetically. “Your face okay?”  
  
“Just sore,” Nya assured her, probing her jaw again. “He doesn’t pull punches though.”  
  
Lloyd almost snorted in agreement, but checked himself at the last minute.  
  
“Neither did your brother,” Skylor chuckled, sounding happy.  
  
Lloyd silently agreed with her.  
  
  
  
The next day at lunch, Nya appeared rather unexpectedly at their table.  
  
Shrugging at Skylor’s curious face, she said, “Kai’s in detention and I’m not sitting with the dumb cheerleaders.”  
  
“Lunch detention?” Skylor asked, opening a can of soda with a crack and a pop.  
  
“He works after school, and as often as he ends up with detention, he just takes it during lunch so he can get to work on time,” Nya explained.  
  
“Gotcha,” Skylor said. “What’s he doing to get in so much trouble?” she laughed.  
  
“Take a wild guess,” Nya snorted fondly.  
  
Nya and Skylor spent the majority of lunch period chatting while Lloyd slowly melting farther into his seat. It wasn’t that Nya was mean or anything - he just didn’t want to scare her off since Skylor seemed to be enjoying her company. Nya was being nice, actually, by typical Lloyd standards.  
  
He learned a lot, too - Lloyd listened and discovered that Nya was fifteen like he was but a grade ahead, and she and Kai were in the same grade. She was in robotics club and foreign languages and on the swim team, where she excelled. She and Skylor actually shared three or four classes. Nya worked a part time job in an engine shop farther south in Ninjago. She liked a couple rock bands Lloyd knew and also liked.  
  
Eventually, Nya went silent, staring him down. Lloyd didn’t realize it at first, since he was occupied in staring at the table (now covered in cat doodles thanks to him and Skylor.)  
  
“Is he capable of speech?” Nya finally said, narrowing her eyes.  
  
Lloyd jumped a little, realizing she was speaking to him. Lost for words, he continued proving her right for a few moments of shock as his shoulders hunched a little.  
  
“Um, yes,” Skylor said, sounding a little protective in her own right. “Only to nice people though.”  
  
“Cool,” Nya said, tilting her head a little. “In case you didn’t catch it, I’m Nya, I’d like to say hello, please shake my hand or I will be sad.” She stuck out a hand.  
  
Lloyd blinked in surprise but recovered pretty quickly, coughing out his name. She had a firm grip.  
  
Nya narrowed her eyes again, but this time, Lloyd got the distinct feeling she was bulldozing through his whole Garmadon-Dad thing and staring into him without worrying about his father.  
  
“I’m not going to be a jerk,” she proclaimed a moment later. “You’re like, basically an adorable kitten.”  
  
Skylor muffled a shocked giggle with her hand, failing to stifle it completely.  
  
Shocked out of his silence, Lloyd protested, “I do _not!_ ” He’d had just about enough of random girls appearing in his life and embarrassing him! First the carrying, then the sparring, now this?!  
  
Nya smirked in a self-satisfied kind of way, reached out, and ruffled his hair before he could stop her. “Whatever,” she snarked. “You’re totally fluffy and you have sparkly eyes.”  
  
Skylor quit trying to hide her laughter as Lloyd squawked in outrage at Nya’s grievous crimes against his ego.  
  
“Give it up, bro,” Skylor advised as Lloyd belatedly hid inside his hood, stuffing his thick blond hair under the green fabric.  
  
Lloyd groaned in theatrical despair as Nya and Skylor fistbumped.  
  
  
  
Later that day Garmadon attacked, right as school was let out, so Skylor and Lloyd beat a hasty retreat to what was now their usual Friday hiding spot - the mostly empty Chen’s Noodle House where it was now a Friday tradition to hang out after school.  
  
Luckily Garmadon was bothering the seaside district today, which meant they were pretty much unbothered.  
  
They mostly passed their time laughing over memes Skylor and Lloyd had amassed, and then they looked up pictures of the mayor and city council and anybody important they could think of and photoshopped cat ears onto all of them, all while eating an unholy amount of fortune cookies.  
  
Skylor ended up texting Nya one of the pictures of the mayor they’d doctored, and about fifteen minutes later the new girl replied with an edited photo of Garmadon to complete their set.  
  
  
  
Next time Lloyd came to school, Chen was waiting for him in the hallway. Between the thing with Nya and the Garmadon attack, Lloyd supposed he should have been expecting something, but he’d been listening to a song Skylor sent him called _Exs and Ohs_ that he really liked, and he hadn’t really been paying attention, which was his undoing.  
  
Stars burst in front of his eyes as Chen slammed him face-first into the wall (again) and Lloyd could have sworn he heard his nose break. (Hopefully he was just overreacting.)  
  
He couldn’t exactly hear what Chen was sneering over the buzzing in his ears, but he’d heard the general speech enough times to make it unnecessary.  
  
Chen spun him around and Lloyd’s world wobbled around Chen’s angry face, which was shoved up into his. Chen punched him in the stomach - _hard,_ geez, he was such a _jerk_ \- and Lloyd nearly bit his tongue reminding himself not to jab the pressure points on Chen’s arms that would render them useless.  
  
Lloyd hated that the hallways were _full of people_ and not _one_ of them cared that Chen was beating the crap out of him. He hated that nobody stepped in, not even a stupid teacher or someone. His head slammed into the wall again and he was overwelmed with a rare anger aimed at the stupid kids who let him get beat up regularly without knowing a thing about him beside who his dad was.  
  
Lloyd kind of hated his dad right then too, because if Garmadon would just care about Lloyd or stop attacking the city, Lloyd wouldn’t be bleeding all over his favorite hoodie right now.  
  
Chen slammed him into the wall again, this time so hard that Lloyd’s world went black.  
  
  
  
-oyd? Hey, Lloyd!”  
  
Lloyd flinched back so hard his head slammed into the wall for the fifth time that morning, and he couldn’t bite back an agonized groan at the pain that elicited.  
  
His eyes focused a little, though things were still fuzzy, and he recognized the person frantically grasping both his shoulders - Nya?  
  
Trying to tone down the red-hot panic in his lungs, Lloyd simply froze and stared at her wide, blue-green eyes.  
  
They were kind of pretty, actually, he thought absentmindedly.  
  
“Hey, wake up,” she said, gripping his shoulders a little tighter. Lloyd didn’t respond, trying to remember how to speak and failing. FSM, his head _ached._  
  
“I’m texting Skylor,” Nya added hurriedly, sounding more and more worried. “I think you have a concussion.”  
  
Concussions sucked, Lloyd remembered.  
  
“Does she have your mom’s number?” Nya asked.  
  
Lloyd didn’t know if Skylor did, but in hindsight it would have been a good idea to make sure of that.  
  
Seconds, or maybe hours later, Skylor was picking him up _again_ (how embarrassing, he wasn’t a baby, he could walk-) and she and Nya were driving him home and totally skipping class for him which was actually really nice.  
  
They got to his apartment, Nya found his keys in his backpack, and they put him on the couch, which was really soft and comfortable compared to the school floor. (Or the wall, for that matter.)  
  
Skylor and Nya somehow managed to figure out his mom’s phone number, even though he kind of wanted them to _stop, hey, there’s no need to freak mom out,_ and then Koko was home and totally freaking out as well and Lloyd kind of wished he was unconscious again because his head was throbbing awfully.  
  
Then it was back into a car, this time his mom’s, and to the little hospital on the corner of Serpentine street, which had outdated tech but was the only hospital that would accept Lloyd. (Probably because they’d made a fortune off his bad luck by now.)  
  
A lifetime and a half later, when they were _finally_ all back in his apartment and the noise and moving had stopped, and Lloyd felt way better thanks to whatever meds they gave him, his mom was sitting on the couch with his head in her lap and Skylor and Nya were still there too. This made him feel like they were pretty worried, which Lloyd didn’t much like, but his tongue kind of felt like rubber so he’d not been talking much.  
  
“You feeling ok?” his mom asked softly after a long while of silence.  
  
“Mhmm,” he answered, staring at the ceiling.  
  
“Doctor said it was a minor concussion,” his mom informed him. “I’m calling the school to let them know you’re staying home for the next few days.”  
  
“Okay,” he mumbled.  
  
“I have to go back to work,” she said apologetically. Lloyd knew her boss would love a reason to cut her pay.  
  
“Okay,” he repeated. The ceiling had a little crack in the drywall.  
  
“Skylor said she and Nya would stay and take care of your, okay?” Koko said.  
  
“They don’t have to,” he mumbled.  
  
“We’re staying,” Nya asserted in a tone that warned him this wasn’t up for debate.  
  
His mom gently squeezed his hand goodbye in lieu of a hug and left him on the couch, enacting a promise from him to _not move, or else._  
  
“ _Why_ didn’t you do anything to stop Chen?!” Nya burst out after another few long quiet minutes. “Skylor told me you do martial arts and stuff, why would you just take that?!”  
  
Lloyd didn’t respond, instead tracing the ceiling crack with his eyes.  
  
“Come on, Lloyd,” Skylor prodded. “You’re allowed to _defend_ yourself.”  
  
“Don’t wanna get expelled,” he muttered under his breath.  
  
“Explanation,” Nya demanded shortly.  
  
“Last time I punched him, got suspended for two months,” Lloyd helpfully elaborated. When neither of the girls responded, he grit his teeth in frustration. “I don’t wanna be like my dad,” he said instead.  
  
“This is super different,” Skylor protested.  
  
“Yeah,” Lloyd said hotly, “but nobody else thinks that. All they’ll think is that I’m being evil, and then it’ll never matter what grades I get or how many good things I do, people will always see me as a monster and they’ll have a _reason,_ and if people are going to hate me I won’t let they say _I told you so_ too!” he paused, blowing out an upset breath. “Plus, if anybody found out Uncle Wu was teaching me Spinjitzu, the cops would go nuts and put me in juvie or something, the only reason they haven’t already is because I haven’t given them any excuse too!”  
  
Skylor and Nya exchanged glances at his outburst, and Lloyd got the feeling that despite having only met recently, they could already communicate telepathically. He could basically imagine their conversation - _Who wants to become his in the hallway bodyguard first?_ Or possibly _Who wants to put Chen in a body cast first,_ knowing Skylor and Nya.  
  
Lloyd then made the mistake of trying to pacify them by saying it was fine, since he really didn’t want them to get in trouble just for him, but it turns out Skylor and Nya both suffered from a case of selective hearing.  
  
The next afternoon, both of them texted him to let him know they’d be a little late coming over to hang out with him because they had detention. Lloyd definitely had his suspicions as to the reason for their sudden punishment.  
  
  
  
Lloyd learned something else about Nya.  
  
She _really_ liked the Sound of Music.  
  
Now he was going to have _Doe, a deer, a female deer_ stuck in his poor, concussed head for the rest of his life.  
  
After their release from detention (they refused to tell him what they were in for but Lloyd didn’t really have any doubts) both girls had magically appeared in his apartment with the wicked intent of forcing him to suffer old movies until he admitted they were good.  
  
Despite their grievous transgressions, Lloyd quickly forgave them, for Skylor was _well_ aware of his sweet-tooth and had brought him cookies n cream ice cream, which was in his humble opinion mankind’s best invention. (It was even better than green hoodies.)  
  
(Speaking of that, he hoped they’d been able to get the blood out of that hoodie, he liked it.)  
  
They would barely let him get up to do _anything,_ so Lloyd got suitable revenge by dooming them to playing Phase 10 with him, which neither of them knew how to play. So after he educated them, he trashed them in the seemingly everlasting game. (Skylor was stuck on Phase 3 for eleven turns and at the end of the game she had 975 points.)  
  
After that, they worked through homework together (Nya blackmailed one of Lloyd’s classmates into giving her copies of his grade’s homework.)  
  
(Nya was awesome.)  
  
And even though he had a headache that wouldn’t quite go away, and even though Skylor and Nya were still trying to convince him of the pros of taking Chen on, and even though Garmadon attacked on Wednesday and destroyed a park Lloyd really liked, the week wasn’t half bad.  
  
  
  
Going back to school, Lloyd noticed that Chen gave him a wide berth, which meant that whatever Nya and Skylor had done to him was bad enough to scare him off at least for now.  
  
Lloyd decided to be thankful for small blessings, even as he opened his locker to an avalanche of hate mail that had piled up over his absence.  
  
Skylor helped him stuff them into a nearby trash bin.  
  
His classes all went pretty well. Science was cool, actually - they were learning about amphibians this week and Lloyd _really_ liked frogs.  
  
During lunch, Nya slammed a tattered notebook on the table and started explaining her ideas for a motorcycle she wanted to build. It was super cool, actually. Lloyd had wanted to join robotics club for a while, but he’d eventually given the idea up since it was pretty much impossible. Still, he loved messing with tech and stuff… he’d built some neat stuff in the past with some of the old junk piled in Uncle Wu’s warehouse.  
  
Lloyd and Nya leaned over her notes together and babbled in technical terms that caused Skylor to get a bit of a glassy look in her eyes. He really liked her engine - it would make her fuel go a lot longer than most bikes would.  
  
Lloyd still hadn’t gotten a chance to meet Kai - Nya claimed he was stuck in the library with a tutor during lunch now because he flunked an algebra exam.  
  
Skylor and Lloyd educated Nya on the fine art of doodling sharpie cats onto the lunch table, and together they named every. Single. Cat.  
  
Every one.  
  
  
  
Nya had choppy black hair and tan skin that made Lloyd wonder if she’d lived somewhere else before Ninjago city. She liked wearing red, which was the polar opposite of Lloyd’s favorite color, which was green, but she pulled it off pretty well. She also liked combat boots, which she claimed were good for stomping on jerks with, and she pulled those off pretty well too.  
  
She looked a little out of place in Chen’s Noodle House, but considering she was sharing tables with Lloyd Garmadon and Skylor Chen, Lloyd figured her loud and slightly terrifying boots were the least of their worries.  
  
They were sort of doing homework, but every three seconds somebody found a meme and then chaos reigned for about five minutes, so their progress was (generously put) nonexistent.  
  
Nya somehow became referee and judge for Skylor and Lloyd’s noodle slurping contest, _which,_ by the way, Lloyd _totally_ won, Nya was being biased toward Skylor.  
  
However, Nya won him back over by ganging up with him on Skylor, since both of them were trying to convince her to get a cat. (Logistically, she was the only one who could, since Lloyd both couldn’t care for one and wasn’t allowed to have pets in his apartment and Nya just said she couldn’t handle one either.)  
  
“Nope, no, my aunt would kill me,” Skylor protested, but her argument was failing more and more by the minute.  
  
“But consider-” Lloyd argued, testing out his newest weapon - puppy eyes. (Nya told him he had shiney eyes, okay, and this was the time to fight dirty.) “Such fluffiness.”  
  
“Even fluffier than Lloyd’s hair!” Nya jumped in.  
  
“Hey,” Lloyd turned to her, comically offended. “I thought we were on the same team.”  
  
Both girls ruffled his hair at the same time, eliciting a dramatic screech of rage and a declaration of war. Lloyd stuck his tongue out since he couldn’t think of anything else suitable or revenge.  
  
Lloyd groaned as both of them started laughing, wondering if they’d ever take him seriously. (Although to be honest he didn’t really mind. Having one friend was insane, but having two? This was miracle-level awesome.)  
  
“Alright,” Skylor finally said, checking the time on her phone. “We’ve got to do this homework eventually, and it’s never getting done here. Let’s get ready to go, anybody late misses the Skylor express. Lloyd, empty your pockets of fortune cookies right this instant, you rogue.” Skylor added a silly accent for her last statement.  
  
Darn, she was observant.  
  
  
  
Even Uncle Wu noticed Lloyd’s shift in mood since meeting Skylor and Nya. Lloyd knew Koko was elated that he’d finally found friends, but even Lloyd hadn’t realized the full extent of how much happier he was. And it’d only taken two people to bring that change to his life.  
  
Uncle Wu, of course, credited the increased meditation sessions he’d given Lloyd, but even the wrinkled old Sensei had a proud gleam in his eye when Lloyd made it through an especially long session without getting distracted.  
  
Today they were working on Spinjitzu again, using the obstacle course Wu had for that purpose. Supposedly, all the random movements Lloyd had to execute in order to complete the course would help him make a Spinjitzu tornado like his uncle did, but he was having trouble figuring _that_ out, so he just did what Uncle Wu said and hoped eventually it would make sense.  
  
Most things Wu said kind of made sense after a while, so hopefully this would too.  
  
Lloyd ended up staying late that afternoon. It was a Sunday but his mom wasn’t home, and despite the difficulty of the exercises, Lloyd was getting really close (or so his uncle claimed) so he didn’t feel like quitting yet.  
  
“Lloyd?” Uncle Wu asked, appearing in the doorway that led out of the warehouse. “Could you help me with something?”  
  
“Of course,” Lloyd panted. Jogging to catch up with his uncle, he followed Wu onto his ship, the Destiny’s Bounty.  
  
“I need help investigating an incident that took place last night,” Wu explained. “The Ninjago City Museum of History was infiltrated and several cultural artifacts have gone missing.”  
  
“Ok,” Lloyd said. “But, isn’t this more the police’s thing?”  
  
“Usually, yes,” Wu admitted. “However, this time I fear it may be my responsibility. I need to check the museum’s security feeds to ascertain the level of the treat we may be facing.” Wu gave a soft chuckle as they continued walking. “Given my technical knowledge, or lack thereof, I need some assistance from you.”  
  
“No problem,” Lloyd said, understanding their destination now. He sat down at the desk, powering on the computer that he and Koko had forced Wu to put on the ship.  
  
Lloyd had done this for Wu several times before, so he had an idea of what to do.  
  
A few years ago the police force gave Wu access to their databases when they teamed up to an army of creatures called Skulkins that caused a lot of trouble outside Ninjago City and then moved _inside_ Ninjago City. Wu still felt that Garmadon had been at least partially responsible for those attacks, but they’d defeated the Skulkin so it didn’t matter much in the present.  
  
Lloyd didn’t know if the police force meant to leave Wu’s access port open as long as they did but before they closed it, Lloyd coded a tiny back door into the system so he and Wu would have access to city cameras. Sometimes after a particularly difficult win, Wu would ask Lloyd to help his single out Garmadon’s new mechs or tricks. It helped them get ready for the next battle.  
  
He’d never used cameras inside a building before, but it didn’t take Lloyd long to get into the museum's security tape records and single out the ones from the night before.  
  
“Alright, here you go,” Lloyd said, calling Wu back over. Wu was skimming through some books that, by the look of them, wouldn’t be out of place _in_ the museum. “Any idea what rooms the items were in?” He’d pulled up a floorplan of the museum as well.  
  
Wu had a list of the items stolen, along with ideas of where they’d been kept. Lloyd’s job was to find the right camera feeds and compile them while Wu kept researching whatever he was researching.  
  
Lloyd skimmed through the list - some books, an ancient golden staff supposedly belonging to the mythical Serpentine, a sarcophagus, a map? That didn’t make much sense. Lloyd tapped the desk with a pen, trying to figure out what linked the items.  
  
He suspected why Wu was worried. Although most believed the Serpentine were mythical creatures that had never existed, Wu had assured Lloyd that they were very real and still around. And a legendary Serpentine artifact was stolen, which was definitely cause for concern.  
  
Lloyd wasn’t sure what the other stolen items had to do with the Serpentine, but he knew he could get them closer to finding out.  
  
Sifting through the tapes from the following morning, he figured out which rooms had housed the artifacts. The staff and the sarcophagus were on public display in a room detailing ancient metalworking techniques. The map had been in a hall of old, preserved papers. The books had been stored in the back of the museum, not on display for the public.  
  
This meant whoever committed the crime had an inside man - otherwise, how would the criminals have known where to find the books? They were buried in a dusty library with hundreds of others that looked exactly the same, it couldn't be by chance. They had to know somebody with access to the records or the room itself.  
  
  
  
Lloyd accidentally stayed at the Bounty until 3 in the morning. He’d texted his mom to let her know where he was, and that he planned on crashing on Uncle Wu’s couch.  
  
He didn’t get much help from the security feed. Someone had tampered with the cameras, so all he got was a record of the police investigation the following morning.  
  
Lloyd had a floorplan of the museum, marked with the rooms stolen from and possible entry/exit routes. He had a list of artifacts stolen, with a hodgepodge of notes marked around them as to what they were, what they supposedly did, and why the robbers could have wanted them.  
  
Before leaving the Bounty, Lloyd snagged some of his uncle’s tea, checking to make sure it was the stuff with caffeine. He chugged a mug of it and stuck his head under the sink to wake up. He tripped over a couple crates stacked around the entrance to the Bounty on the way out - _What the heck are those?_ \- before starting his run to school.  
  
Unfortunately, the Bounty was a ship, which meant it was docked near the beach next to Wu’s warehouse, which nearly doubled the area he needed to cover. Also, no buses for his school came to the docks.  
  
Lloyd didn’t mind running - he enjoyed it, really, when he wasn’t being chased, and the invigorating movement served to force his brain to finish waking up too.  
  
He took a few shortcuts through alleys and over a few buildings, since he really didn’t want to be late and get detention. Uncle Wu needed his help again later, and to be honest Lloyd was pretty anxious to figure the mystery out himself.  
  
He wanted to review the footage he’d gathered last night again and look for anything that could point to the Serpentine. Honestly, if it wasn’t them, he and Wu would just leave it for the police to take care of, since the artifacts would likely only be dangerous if possessed by a Serpentine.  
  
Wu still hadn’t told him what exactly he was worried about, but that was typical of his uncle.  
  
Lloyd slowed to a brisk walk as he got close, keeping his head down as he wove through the crowds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we meet Nya! She's also a force to be reckoned with. (So are most of Ninjago's lovely ladies of course.)  
> We also get our first taste of the plot!  
> (also reminder that I know almost nothing about public school so if I got some details wrong forgive me XD)  
> Thanks for reading and remember to comment, it seriously makes my day!  
> :)


	3. Chapter 3

Lunch rolled around and Lloyd was too preoccupied with his thoughts to notice that someone new was sitting at their table.  
  
He froze for a moment, wondering what to do, before realizing it was Nya’s brother Kai. Nervous but fairly certain he wouldn’t get clobbered, Lloyd slid into his seat, followed by Skylor.  
  
“Hey Lloyd!” Nya chirped, interrupting her brother.  
  
“Hey,” he said, stifling a yawn. He needed sugar.  
  
“Someone was up too late,” Skylor teased.  
  
“Shut up,” Lloyd mumbled, taking a bite and leveling a fake glare at her.  
  
“This is Kai,” Nya said, jerking a thumb at her brother, who was looking Lloyd up and down contemplatively.  
  
Lloyd nervously raised a hand in a wave hello.  
  
“Sup,” Kai said, leaning back and staring them down.  
  
Lloyd remembered Kai’s scar - it arced across his right eye, slashing halfway down through his cheek and up past his eyebrow. His skin was tan like Nya’s, but he was a little taller than her. (And a little shorter than Skylor.) Unlike Nya, his hair was dark brown and shot out spikily. It looked kind of cool, Lloyd had to admit, even if Kai himself was a little imposing.  
  
Lloyd recalled what it sounded like when Kai tackled Chen to the floor and tried not to let the older teen freak him out.  
  
  
  
_**Ambrr:** hey r u free after school?_  
  
_**Lloyd:** nope :(_  
  
_**Lloyd:** I’m helping my uncle w/ smthng_  
  
_**Nya:** boring_  
  
_**Lloyd:** not really, i’ll tell u abt it later_  
  
Lloyd dropped to the ground next to the dock, shifting his backpack straps into a more comfortable position as he walked to the Bounty.  
  
“Uncle Wu?” he asked, ducking inside.  
  
“In here,” his uncle’s voice floated up from belowdecks, where they’d spent the previous night.  
  
“Hello, Nephew,” his uncle greeted without looking up from whatever he was studying.  
  
“Sup,” Lloyd responded, flopping into the desk chair and ripping open a bag of licorice. (Fuel.)  
  
(For his brain, of course.)  
  
He leaned back in the chair, stuck a stick of licorice in his mouth, and started rewatching the tapes. He’d shown Uncle Wu how to access the files as well since they were on their computer now, and he assumed his uncle had already been through them once.  
  
“Has anything turned up?” Lloyd asked, eyes glued to the screen.  
  
“Nothing much,” Wu sighed. “But I fear that the evidence, or rather the lack of evidence, is only cementing my suspicions.”  
  
“Yeah?” Lloyd asked. “What do you think the Serpentine mean to do with what they stole?”  
  
“The staff and sarcopagus are rather obvious,” Wu replied, contemplatively stroking his beard. “Both are cultural artifacts of the Serpentine, and the staff is said to have great power. However, neither of these grant much insight into their intentions. I suspect the books and map would help with that. If they are after what I suspect they are, Ninjago is in grave danger.”  
  
“Do we know what the books and map were about?” Lloyd asked, worried.  
  
“I have a theory, but the police are denying me entrance. I visited the commissioner today to speak to them about it.”  
  
“What? Why?!” Lloyd asked, surprised. Sure, everyone hated _him,_ but Wu was pretty much a hero to Ninjago.  
  
“Somebody at the museum requested the search be completely confidential, besides the generic news cover-up story,” Wu said.  
  
“Do we know who at the museum requested that?” Lloyd asked, recalling his inside man theory from the previous night.  
  
“Yes, I asked for a name,” Wu said. “A Dr. Sander Saunders."  
  
  
  
Lloyd sighed, frustrated. The tapes were no help, mostly because they didn’t _exist._ There were no recordings on museum cameras that night. It just skipped from the evening before to the morning after.  
  
Lloyd stirred his tea with a stick of licorice before taking a bite of the candy and immediately regretting it. (Turns out oolong and licorice do not mix well, who’d have thought.)  
  
Blowing out a breath, he started looking for street cam records of the criminals. If he could just find one clue to point them towards a base or a destination - even a direction would be helpful at this point.  
  
And yet, despite all the cameras outside the museum and the shops lining the street, the museum stayed quiet as a mouse all night long.  
  
Lloyd’s eyes felt sore (how was that even _possible?!_ ) from staring at the screen nonstop. He’d checked the timestamps for the videos. There was no missing footage. And even though he saw cars driving past, the occasional lost cat, and plenty of people out for a walk, he never saw anything suspicious near the museum. He’d even managed to find a camera pointed at the roof!  
  
Despite his curiosity, Lloyd was almost thankful when Wu dragged him back to the warehouse for Spinjitzu practice and meditation.  
  
He had to admit, meditation was really helping him put his thoughts in order. (Okay, so maybe he wasn’t exactly meditating, but he was sitting quietly and thinking, so how was Wu to know the difference?!)  
  
Lloyd decided that what he needed to do was find out who had been on the crime scene - somebody had to discover the thefts, and museum staff would have been curious before the police arrived and taped everything off. If he could find a witness, maybe he could…  
  
Okay, _Lloyd_ couldn’t question them, but he knew some people who could help him out.  
  
Lloyd went through all the newer footage that he’d only skimmed before. He counted three people who’d appeared on tape, looking through the rooms, before the officers showed up. He screenshotted pictures of their faces, hoping to pinpoint their identities.  
  
Scrolling through the museum list of staff, he was able to ID all three of them.  
  
One, a man with graying hair, came up as the infamous Dr. Saunders who’d basically cut them off from relevant info. The second was a woman named Elaine Thompson, a janitor who’d been cleaning the halls that morning. The third was a rare stroke of luck for Lloyd - Cole Brookstone, a student intern who happened to be going to Lloyd’s own school - Ninjago High.  
  
  
  
Lloyd spent the rest of the evening explaining everything he’d found to Wu, who looked grave when Lloyd mentioned the complete lack of outside recordings. The teen was still stumped - how could the criminals have gotten in? He’d seen just about every angle the museum had, and anyways, there were alarms wired to the doors and windows that not just any inside man could turn off.  
  
Once he finished, Wu nodded gravely. “I fear this confirms my suspicions,” he said.  
  
“What?” Lloyd questioned, surprised. “How?! I literally found nothing.”  
  
“Precisely,” Wu said unhelpfully.  
  
After a moment of silence, Lloyd prompted, “and therefore…?”  
  
“What angles of the museum did you study?” Wu said.  
  
“All of them,” Lloyd reiterated. “All the sides, front and back and everything, even the roof, I got everything.”  
  
“Except the floor,” Wu pointed out. “There is a tribe of Serpentine known explicitly for their ability to drill through almost any material. It would be no difficult matter for them to tunnel inside the museum from below. Additionally, there are dozens of below-ground storerooms and study rooms in the museum. This would make it easy to get in and out without being noticed, and because nobody could possibly suspect their mode of entry, it would be days, even weeks before they think to check the underground chambers. Therefore, your complete lack of findings doesn’t just point towards a lack of solutions, it points towards the lack of any other viable mode of entry.”  
  
Lloyd blinked.  
  
“Hey, you’re right,” he said, impressed. “That’s… really smart.”  
  
Wu gave a brief smile. “Well, I suppose that means this is my responsibility after all,” he mumbled. “Thank you for your help, Nephew.”  
  
“Wait, hang on!” Lloyd protested. “I can still help!”  
  
“We’ve had this discussion several times in the past,” Wu said, in his _you-aren’t-winning-this-conversation_ voice.  
  
“Yeah, about _Garmadon,_ ” Lloyd argued. “This is different!”  
  
“Indeed,” Wu agreed. “The Serpentine are a much lower level of threat, and one I can easily handle on my own.”  
  
“But,” Lloyd faltered. “I want to be helpful.”  
  
“You’ve been immeasurably so already,” Wu said kindly, placing a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Lloyd. I know you’ve been making friends lately. Now is hardly the time to become enmeshed in a mystery such as this. Go home, get plenty of rest tonight, and enjoy spending time with your people at school tomorrow.”  
  
Lloyd swallowed a disappointed sigh, knowing this was the end of their conversation.  
  
“Alright,” he said dejectedly. After a moment of silence, he added, “See you on Saturday, right?”  
  
“Of course,” Wu promised, smiling.  
  
Lloyd left the Bounty, stepping into the cool night air. Deciding that walking home alone in the dark would be asking for trouble, he went ahead and took the high road - right over the tops of buildings. Usually he just walked, since this was both riskier and harder, but tonight he felt like blowing off some steam.  
  
Lloyd wanted to help. He wanted to prove to his uncle that he wasn’t just some useless little kid anymore. Maybe if he were helpful like his uncle was, the city would think he was a hero too.  
  
Well.  
  
Uncle Wu hadn’t _asked permission_ to become the city’s defender. Maybe Lloyd didn’t need permission either.  
  
  
  
The next day at school, Lloyd explained the situation - sans the Serpentine - to his newfound partners in crime, Skylor and Nya. (Kai was once again missing, studying in the library with a tutor.)  
  
“So basically,” he laid out, once he’d finished filling them in, “I need somebody to talk to this Cole person and find out what he knows about the break-in. And then convince him to let me into the museum below-ground rooms,” he added.  
  
Skylor blew out a breath. “That’s a tall order, bro,” she said.  
  
“Totally cool though,” Nya enthused. “We could have a real adventure!”  
  
“Come on, Skylor,” Lloyd wheedled. What could he use to motivate her? He rapidly flipped through everything he knew about the red-haired teen. Oh, yeah, that would work.  
  
“You can prove to the city that you’re not like your dad,” Lloyd said, wincing as he realized this would let them both figure out his own motivation. “You’ll get an _I-told-you-so,_ which I hear are awesome.”  
  
Skylor _did_ look slightly more convinced.  
  
After a minute, she sighed. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll court the intern.”  
  
Lloyd spluttered, protesting at her choice of words. Skylor waved him off, smirking. “I think I recognize the name,” she said. “Big dude, black hair, always wears headphones, looks like he could bench-press the three of us at once?”  
  
Nya scoffed, sounding slightly offended. “ _I_ could bench press all three of us,” she said.  
  
Lloyd raised an eyebrow.  
  
“I could bench-press _Lloyd,_ ” Nya amended, sticking her tongue out at him.  
  
He stuck his out back, prompting Skylor to roll her eyes and mumble something about kids. Pfft. She was only a year older than the two of them.  
  
“If you’re going to woo the intern, we might as well get started now,” Nya said.  
  
“Ok, if you two don’t find different verbs to use I’m banning you from the mission,” Lloyd threatened.  
  
“Pfft, fine,” Skylor laughed. “We have three or four classes together, if he is who I think he is. I can hang with him a bit and fish for info.”  
  
“I have work in the afternoons this week,” Nya said. “And Saturday.”  
  
“And I’m terrifying,” Lloyd said, careful to keep any trace of bitterness out of his tone. “You’re gonna have more luck on your own I think.”  
  
“You do realize we have to force him to realize your utter harmlessness eventually if you want into the library, right?” Nya pointed out.  
  
Lloyd decided to ignore the _harmless_ comment. “Fine, but we gotta take small steps. Butter him up before introducing him to me.”  
  
Skylor and Nya both looked a little sad at that comment, but Lloyd hated it when they got all droopy-eyed because of him, so he bulldozed through the feeling to start talking about his (horrible) algebra teacher.  
  
Skylor left him with a promise to “schmooze the buff dude,” which made Lloyd reconsider his choice of assistants. (Except not really since besides his mom and his uncle they were _literally_ the only people he knew.)  
  
The rest of the day was ok - one of Chen’s buddies tripped him in the hall and he mysteriously lost all his english notes, which sucked because they had a test coming up and english was _hard,_ but he supposed it wasn’t too bad.  
  
He saw Skylor sitting with Cole in art class, (he’d instructed her to do that specifically,) and it looked like she’d be having a difficult time of it… Cole looked like Garmadon himself could be sitting next to him and he wouldn’t mind.  
  
(Ok, that might be an exaggeration. Garmadon was _very_ hard to ignore.)  
  
  
  
_**Ambrr:** it’s like he’s made of stone_  
  
_**Ambrr:** i can barely get a reaction_  
  
_**Nya:** must be uncharted waters for you_  
  
_**Ambrr:** excuse you??_  
  
_**Lloyd:** girls, girls, you’re both pretty._  
  
_**Lloyd:** can we focus tho_  
  
Lloyd glanced away from the phone just in time to catch sight of and duck a rock, sighing. The last thing he needed was another black eye on the other side of his face. (Somebody decided Lloyd wasn’t allowed to have peaceful Fridays apparently.)  
  
_**Nya:** what if we just mugged him and forced him to help us_  
  
_**Lloyd:** NO_  
  
_**Ambrr:** it would kinda defeat the purpose_  
  
_**Ambrr:** plus he has like four inches on me, which means he has like a foot on lloyd_  
  
_**Ambrr:** i dont think we’d get far_  
  
Lloyd was about to reply when a blaring alarm went off, searing into his ears and deafening him. It looked like Garmadon liked Fridays too. And, lucky Lloyd, it sounded like Garmadon was in this district.  
  
A Garmadon attack was definitely the worst time to be out on the streets, he knew, so Lloyd started running, hoping to make it to his apartment before Garmadon or the citizens got to him. (He figured one of them would eventually.)  
  
Glancing around at his options, Lloyd suddenly noticed that he was _right_ next to the Ninjago Museum of History. Almost ironic… was it possible Garmadon also knew about the Serpentine?  
  
Or maybe he just wanted to deface some more ancient paintings.  
  
(With Garmadon it was impossible to tell.)  
  
If he cut through the landscaping next to the museum, though, he could cross over onto another street and be that much closer to the apartment.  
  
Something exploded to his right and he heard the telltale _nom nom nom_ noise Garmadon’s weird sharks made. Museum shortcut it was.  
  
Lloyd dashed to the weird little garden-walk-history thing - he vaguely remembered that there were a bunch of plaques all over the place talking about great figures in Ninjago’s past. He was pretty sure his uncle was in here somewhere.  
  
Vaulting one of the low walls, he dodged shrubberies and little trees and _why would anybody invent a path this convoluted, come on, they lived in Ninjago City for heaven sakes-_  
  
Garmadon was hollering something or other into his megaphone. (It sounded like “what's my name” but Lloyd thought that was ridiculous.)  
  
Suddenly completely turned around within a bunch of dumb trees, Lloyd found his gaze drawn to the top of the museum.  
  
Before he could give it too much thought, Lloyd was on their roof and darting across it, headed in the right direction.  
  
He barely had time to react before a sudden missile collapsed the roof of the museum.  
  
Maybe Lloyd should have given it thought after all.  
  
  
  
So, it looked like Garmadon _hadn’t_ intended to to paint his face on more old paintings, since it looked like he’d been aiming to blow up a hall full of them.  
  
Lloyd coughed out a mouthful of dust and shoved a heavy, ancient, probably-worth-a-fortune frame off him, wincing at the creaking sound it made as it slid away.  
  
It looked like the missile had just caused the roof to come down, so the walls appeared to be unharmed and still stable. That was good, he supposed. Lloyd sighed. He actually liked the museum.  
  
He glanced at the pile of rubble, mixed in with damaged display cases and stands, paintings, somebody’s arm, a-  
  
Lloyd did a double take - yup, that was a person trapped under a huge wooden display, which was under part of the ceiling.  
  
Wincing as he scrambled over stone to get to them, Lloyd hoped they were alive. It looked like the heavy wood would have protected them from the roof, at least. Hopefully, they were unconscious. Then Lloyd could just oncover him and get out before someone noticed him.  
  
Glancing at the roof, which was his way in but definitely not a viable way out, Lloyd groaned in anticipation. He’d have to find a door, which meant people… Actually people might already be on their way. Lloyd moved faster.  
  
Bracing his foot on another chunk of rubble behind him, Lloyd shoved at the stone with all his might, muscles straining as it kind of started to move. Man, it was heavy. Whoever was under it let out a raspy cough and Lloyd winced, hoping they were okay. Man, if they were awake he was definitely in for it. Maybe he could just move it and run?  
  
After five minutes of pushing, Lloyd was able to maneuver the debris enough to get a hold on the ornate wooden display thingy and shove it up.  
  
The person under it was tall, covered in whitish dust, and… Lloyd almost bit his lip in surprise.  
  
_Cole Brookstone?_  
  
Lloyd almost groaned. FSM, was his life just a giant ironic joke?  
  
The older teen coughed again, shifting himself up onto his hands. “Thanks,” he said, before looking up and freezing.  
  
Feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, Lloyd winced. “I- bye,” he stuttered, turning and bounding for the nearest exit.  
  
“Hey, wait!” Cole called after him.  
  
_Yeah right,_ Lloyd thought. Exit, street, home. He could do it in no ti-  
  
Lloyd cursed the cosmic forces as he jinxed himself again. Shark soldiers were invading the museum, apparently, bearing… crab guns and jumbo sharpies? Maybe Garmadon wanted to destroy _and_ deface the art.  
  
Nope, nope, he didn’t care. Lloyd spun on his heel and started sprinting back the way he came, hacking up more dust and ignoring his pounding head.  
  
He darted past a very startled looking Cole who was running in the wrong direction. “Shark guys!” Lloyd warned pointing back the way he’d come.  
  
He didn’t know if Cole heeded his warning or not, but he hoped he did.  
  
Ok, Lloyd had _no idea_ where in the museum he was. Every hall seemed to loop back to another one and he thought he’d run past the same statue twice now, and he could hear the sound of _nom nom nomming_ growing closer which was definitely a bad sign.  
  
“Hey!” Cole shouted, hand latching onto Lloyd’s arm.  
  
Surprised, Lloyd shrieked ( _not_ in a high-pitched voice, in a totally normal voice-) and jerked his arm out of Cole’d grasp.  
  
“Come on,” Cole said, ignoring Lloyd’s reaction. “I know where the exit is.”  
  
Lloyd didn’t spend a moment pondering Cole’s actions as the black-haired teen ran down a hall. (Man, the museum just went on and on and on.)  
  
They ran for a few minutes, ducking around corners and dodging random statues and artifacts and displays.  
  
“We’re almost there,” Cole said, right as three dudes dressed up as sharks emerged from a door up ahead into the back hall they were in.  
  
Cole skidded to a halt, one leg going back in a boxer’s stance as he looked ahead uncertainly.  
  
Lloyd sighed at the unfairness of the universe and darted ahead. Time to test that Spinjitzu practice, he supposed.  
  
He kicked the first guy in the jaw, snapping his whole head back as the soldier stumbled away. Spinning, Lloyd punched another shark soldier right in his helmet, twice, before ducking under a hit from the third guy. Sweeping a foot under the second guy, he caught him on the way down and shoved him into the third.  
  
“Come on!” he hollered at Cole, who was looking rather shocked at his seven-second display.  
  
“Come _on!_ ” Lloyd shouted, louder this time.  
  
Cole shook his head, stepped around the groggy looking shark dudes, and pointed to the door they needed.  
  
It led to some kind of break room with a sink and a minifridge and a few tables. A door at the opposite side glowed with a bright red exit sign. _Finally,_ Lloyd thought, shooting to the door and throwing it open.  
  
“Wait!” Cole called again as Lloyd sped out the door, hand latching onto Lloyd’s elbow again. Lloyd panicked, trying to get his arm free with a swift tug, but Cole was ready this time.  
  
“Dude- that was-”  
  
He hadn’t meant to. Really. But Lloyd’s heart was racing with the adrenaline of the last twenty minutes, and all his brain registered was _big scary looking dude holding onto your arm._  
  
Before his mind could catch up with his reflexes, he’d twisted out of Cole’s grip and swept a leg into his knees, effectively knocking the older teen to the ground.  
  
Right as Lloyd started to freak out, realising what he’d done, he turned and ran for his apartment.  
  
  
  
By the time Monday rolled around, Lloyd had had all weekend to work himself up. Cole had not only seen him beat up three guys in seven seconds, but Lloyd had knocked Cole to the ground on top of that. There was no way this could go anywhere but south.  
  
“Dude, what’s wrong?” Nya asked, probably noticing that he looked awful.  
  
“I did something stupid,” he mumbled.  
  
Nya narrowed her eyes, probably weighing her defintion of stupid against whatever she thought his was. “Need me to punch someone?” she asked all-too-cheerfully.  
  
Lloyd almost groaned. “Nope,” he said instead. “Thanks for offering.”  
  
Not only was he probably in trouble with Cole, the museum had been shut down for the next several months for repairs. Most of the staff weren’t allowed in - only a few key managers and stuff. The construction, security, and police teams were the only people allowed in. So he’d lost his only lead too.  
  
And he had that english test today, the one he’d lost all his notes for.  
  
  
  
Lloyd was pretty sure he'd failed the test.  
  
This information was enough to distract him to the point where he didn’t realise who was sitting across from Skylor at their lunch table until he slid dejectedly into the seat next to her.  
  
Lloyd actually yelped when he realized it was Cole, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle the noise.  
  
“Lloyd, you look like death,” Skylor commented helpfully.  
  
He mumbled something incoherent about studying in the library, making to get up.  
  
“Hey, wait,” Cole said, holding up his hands but not grabbing Lloyd’s arm again. (Thank FSM)  
  
“How come you let everyone beat the crap out of you if you can do what you did in the museum?” Cole asked. Lloyd could practically feel his gaze burning into the still-healing bruise around his eye.  
  
Skylor’s narrowed eyes were on the both of them, trying to figure out what she was missing.  
  
“I- um-” Lloyd stammered, his brain short-circuiting. _This_ was what Cole wanted to know!?  
  
“Sup,” Nya said, voice cautious, as she arrived on the scene with her lunch tray in hand. “What’s goin’ on?”  
  
“Um,” Lloyd said again. He groaned inwardly. Why couldn’t he form words today?!  
  
“I’m not- I don’t want to do anything to you,” Cole said, embarrassingly guessing why Lloyd was having a tiny panic attack in the middle of the cafeteria. “I just wanna know. What you did in the museum, it was really cool. You even dropped me in like, half a second. And no offense, but you’re a shrimp, so-”  
  
“He is,” Skylor agreed primly.  
  
“I am _not,_ ” Lloyd protested, spinning to face her. At least she’d annoyed him into being able to talk.  
  
“Sit down,” Skylor implored.  
  
“Yeah, I wanna know what this is about,” Nya said, ripping open a package in a way that managed to convey the message _mess-with-Lloyd-and-you’re-dogmeat_ in Cole’s direction.  
  
“Last Friday,” Cole explained, while Lloyd agitatedly traced a doodle on the table. Why did everything have to be so confusing these days? “I was at the museum when Garmadon attacked. The roof to one room got blown up and trapped me under a bunch of junk and exhibits. Next thing I know, this guy is pulling the stuff off me and then running away. I followed him and then he came back and there were shark dudes in the museum. We were headed for the exit when these three guys came out of nowhere and Lloyd knocked them out in like, three seconds.”  
  
_I didn’t knock them out,_ Lloyd corrected in his head. _And it was seven seconds._  
  
“Then you took off before I could thank you,” Cole finished. “So thanks. You probably saved my life.”  
  
Lloyd blinked, wondering if he heard him right.  
  
Cole grinned, a lopsided smile that seemed completely honest.  
  
“Aw, Lloyd,” Skylor grinned, nudging him with her shoulder.  
  
“Stoppit,” he mumbled, shoving her back and hoping he wasn’t blushing.  
  
  
  
As impressed as Cole seemed with Lloyd’s quick take-down of Garmadon’s shark soldiers, it was no surprise that he wanted Lloyd to teach him.  
  
At first, Lloyd denied his skill, pointing Cole to Skylor. Of course, ever since Wu upped their Spinjitzu training, Lloyd had been holding his own against the redhead, but Cole didn’t know that. However, Skylor knew exactly what he was doing and totally tricked him.  
  
(But he got fortune cookies out of it so he forgave her.)  
  
They spent Wednesday afternoon at Chen’s Noodle House. Cole was actually pretty impressed and excited when he heard Skylor owned it - though he looked confused for half a second. (Skylor’s last name and Chen’s first name were pure coincidence, they all assured him.)  
  
Skylor totally volunteered Lloyd into showing them some moves while bulldozing through his protests, while Nya gleefully backed her up and Cole kind of just watched the two team up with an impressed and slightly worried look on his face. Good. Skylor and Nya alone were terrifying, rightly so, but together they were a force to be reckoned with.  
  
A force that turned every bit of power on Lloyd. Who didn’t stand a chance in hindsight.  
  
So they were in an abandoned warehouse near a stretch of shore that'd been totalled and abandoned when it cost too much to repair.  
  
Lloyd started with some of the stretching poses his uncle showed him and Skylor added some her own master (someone named Dareth?) had taught her. Cole was surprisingly good right off the bat, with a practiced kind of grace that Lloyd couldn’t help but envy. Nya was almost as good, but she tended to like Skylor’s teaching more.  
  
Finally, Lloyd had to know- “Have you done something like this before?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Nya added curiously. “No offense, but I wouldn’t expect someone as big as you to be so fluid.”  
  
“Ugh,” Cole grumbled unexpectedly. “It’s because of my dad,” he said after a moment. “He’s a dancer. He wanted me to be a dancer. I took like a billion years of dance before convincing him to give it a rest.”  
  
Nya smirked, undoubtedly imagining tall, muscular Cole in a dance studio.  
  
“It’ll help you out a lot though,” Lloyd pointed out. “My uncle always says that balance is key. Without it anything can push you off course.”  
  
“Yeah, Dareth said stuff like that too,” Skylor mused. “Just in more… colorful terms.”  
  
Cole chuckled as Lloyd started pointing out grappling techniques to Nya.  
  
“How long has your uncle been training you?” Cole asked curiously.  
  
“Couple of years,” Lloyd replied absentmindedly. “We’re mostly just doing Spinjitzu and meditation now. Which,” he added, seeing Skylor’s expression, “I can’t teach you yet. I’m not super good at it. Can’t do a tornado or anything, he just makes me run the obstacle course a lot.”  
  
“Too bad,” Skylor said.  
  
“I’ll teach you if I ever get it down,” he offered. “And you guys!” He added hastily, catching Nya’s face.  
  
They went for a couple of hours before just flopping on the concrete floor and doing homework together. Nya, Cole, and Skylor were all in the same grade, right above Lloyd, but a lot of their work was similar in nature. Nya ended up explaining to all of them how a couple more advanced algebra functions worked, since she was the only one who could make sense of them. Cole was able to help Lloyd a little with his history, which, hey, that reminded him-  
  
“Why were you interning at the museum?” Lloyd asked curiously.  
  
“I liked the art rooms,” Cole admitted. “Plus history is kinda neat.”  
  
“Blerg,” Nya said, making her opinion known.  
  
“Wasn’t there a break-in at the museum the other day?” Lloyd said carefully.  
  
“Yeah, it was on the news and stuff,” Skylor added, helping him along.  
  
“Did you get to see anything neat?” Lloyd asked, putting on his most innocent face.  
  
“Not really,” Cole said. “But they took a really pretty map of the desert. I really liked that one, there were lots of old pictures on it and the text was really stylized.”  
  
“Huh,” Lloyd said, struggling to continue feigning disinterest. “What’d the map show?”  
  
“Some mythical place,” Cole said absentmindedly, tilting his head to study a graph. “Orobos, or something weird like that,” he said.  
  
_Ouroboros!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another Kai teaser but no Kai ;)  
> And so we meet Cole! Cole's so chill in the movie, I thought he'd be perfect for Lloyd to have around at things start heating up ;)  
> Hope you guys like it, remember to comment and stuff because it makes me scream in joy!  
> (Also sorry this is kinda late my brain ganged up with Lord of the Rings to slow me down)


	4. Chapter 4

“Look, Nya, I’m telling you, I saw them _again_ last night at Borg tower!”  
  
“Yeah, right, okay,” Nya replied to her brother, sounding frustrated.  
  
“Nya!” Kai groaned as Lloyd nervously sat down. Skylor and Cole were already at the table, putting it at five people, which was a number Lloyd had never expected to see.  
  
“Dude, you’re seeing things again,” Nya said.  
  
“ _He had a tail,_ ” Kai hissed. “I wouldn’t just imagine that!”  
  
Lloyd’s interest peaked at once. A tail?  
  
“Um. What’d you see?” he asked Kai.  
  
“A green dude with a tail!” Kai insisted, keeping his voice low. “I work with a shipping company and we were unloading a bunch of production materials and stuff into the storerooms beneath Borg tower. And I swear I saw him… _slither_ past a doorway!”  
  
“Yeah, right,” Nya scoffed.  
  
“I dunno,” Skylor said, eyes narrowed. “I believe him.”  
  
“What?!” Nya protested.  
  
“It’s the second time I’ve seen him!” Kai protested. “Why would I have had the same hallucination twice?!”  
  
“Because you’re subconscious is as bull-headed as the rest of you!” Nya said.  
  
Cole glanced over, attention drawn from his headphones for a moment, before turning back to his lunch.  
  
“No, he could have actually seen something,” Skylor said.  
  
“I’m with Skylor,” Lloyd said. “You guys remember the- um, the thing we did? When I was interested in the museum?” Lloyd’s eyes darted to Kai and Cole for a moment. “The guys I was telling you about, who I was trying to find, Uncle Wu and I are pretty sure they’re Serpentine.”  
  
“What? I thought they were legends!” Nya exclaimed. “Y’know, make-believe?”  
  
“They’re real,” Skylor muttered darkly. “My dad basically worshiped one of their tribes. He started a whole cult dedicated to bringing them back or something. It’s part of why he’s in the slammer.”  
  
Cole blinked - it looked like he hadn’t known this information, but like all things, he seemed to take it in stride and keep rolling.  
  
“Yup,” Lloyd confirmed. “You, uh, probably saw a Venomari,” he told Kai. “They’re green.”  
  
“It had a tail?” Skylor confirmed.  
  
“Yeah,” Kai said, sounding a little baffled but interested nonetheless.  
  
“It was a general, then,” she said knowledgeably. “Only the leader has a full tail, all the other Serpentine have normalish legs.”  
  
“You sound like you know lots about ‘em,” Lloyd said curiously.  
  
“Dad stuff,” she laughed humorlessly. “He was a fanatic.”  
  
“Uncle Wu hasn’t told me much about them,” Lloyd said, “Except for the tribes and that he was alive when they were around.”  
  
“Geez,” Skylor said. “He’s like a billion.”  
  
“I mean, not _quite,_ ” Lloyd huffed.  
  
Kai narrowed his eyes, glancing between Skylor and Lloyd. “What’s going on?” he asked.  
  
“A thing,” Lloyd blurted. As soon as the words left his mouth he cursed himself. “For my uncle, I mean, he wanted me to learn about Serpentine so I had to go to the museum.”  
  
“Uh huh,” Kai said, still looking suspicious. Lloyd could feel himself withering under Kai’s gaze.  
  
“Knock it off, Kai,” Nya said, shoving her brother with her shoulder.  
  
Kai huffed his displeasure, but thankfully made no move to continue the discussion.  
  
  
  
_**Lloyd:** where did Kai say he saw the Venomari the first time?_  
  
_**Nya:** a storage warehouse in the docks_  
  
_**Nya:** his boss owns it_  
  
_**Ambrr:** that and borg tower_  
  
_**Lloyd:** right_  
  
_**Ambrr:** tell me you’re not planning on on investigating_  
  
_**Ambrr:** its ur uncles job remember?_  
  
_**Ambrr:** and HE probably wont end up in jail_  
  
_**Lloyd:** bold of you to assume im sneaking into borg tower_  
  
_**Ambrr:** i didn’t say it u did_  
  
_**Nya:** ooh shes right_  
  
_**Lloyd:** chill im headed for the warehouse_  
  
_**Lloyd:** nya can i have a name_  
  
  
  
Lloyd dropped to the ground right as Skylor’s car pulled up.  
  
“Skylor?” he asked redundantly.  
  
“Yup,” she closed her car door with a click. “Somebody’s gotta babysit you.”  
  
“I resent that,” Lloyd mumbled, but he didn’t mind that Skylor was here. He doubted he’d ever mind having people around.  
  
“Doors are locked,” she noted.  
  
“I know,” Lloyd said, just a little bit smuggly. “We’ll see if you can keep up.”  
  
He climbed to the roof of the warehouse, using a drainpipe bolted to the wall. The warehouse itself was in good enough condition; it seemed safe to climb.  
  
“Coming?” he called down to Skylor, who narrowed her eyes at the challenge.  
  
“Like I'm gonna let some runty freshman beat me at anything,” she scoffed, setting her hands on the drainpipe.  
  
To her credit, Skylor made it to the top.  
  
“Nice,” Lloyd grinned cheerfully. “I didn’t even have to point you to the fire escape over there.”  
  
“ _Lloyd,_ ” she groaned.  
  
“Come on,” he said.  
  
He walked over to the rooftop access door. “Yup, just latched,” he said. “You’d think with Garmadon running around people would be more worried about security.”  
  
“Camera?” Skylor asked suspiciously.  
  
“Took care of ‘em,” Lloyd said.  
  
“Excuse me?” Skylor asked.  
  
“Um. Uncle Wu has access to the police database and all the cameras in Ninjago city. I just disabled the ones around here for the night.”  
  
“Y’know,” Skylor said dryly, “for someone who spends so much time getting beat up to prove a point, you’d make a fabulous criminal.”  
  
“Shut up,” Lloyd mumbled, shoving her. “I’m not hurting anybody by doing this and I’ll probably help someone.”  
  
“I know,” she said. “What about guards?”  
  
“One in the office in the southwest corner. He watches the screens and he won’t be a problem.” Lloyd grinned tugging up a mask that covered his lower face. “Looks like you’re just outta luck since you snuck along.”  
  
Skylor stuck her tongue out at him before revealing a bandana which she tied over her mouth and nose. “When did you get so sarcastic,” she mumbled.  
  
Lloyd checked his phone, studying the text Nya had sent them both.  
  
_**Nya:** Kai says he saw it in the back of the warehouse, aisle 3, in the big wooden crates. He went over to check it out but he says it was gone when he got over. Thats all i could get without making him suspicious._  
  
“It must have been looking for something in the crates,” Lloyd surmised, putting his phone in his pocket. “Maybe we can figure out a location from what’s left.”  
  
They took the rickety stairs down, wincing at every outrageous creak of old metal. By the time they reached the floor, Lloyd was about ready to tear his hair out from the suspense.  
  
“Come on,” he whispered, pointing in the direction they needed to go.  
  
It was mostly dark but some light shone in through massive skylights set into the warehouse roof, so at least they could kinda see where they were going.  
  
They quickly found Aisle 3, which was mostly filled with tarp-covered objects. Towards the back of the aisle, though, were several wooden crates of different sizes.  
  
Using their phones as flashlights, they scanned all the crates, looking for information about where the contents came from or what they were. As far as Lloyd had been able to research, Kai’s company was just a shipping company - they moved all kinds of wares to all kinds of businesses.  
  
“Ugh,” he groaned quietly, growing frustrated. “I can’t find anything. How about you?”  
  
“Nothing,” Skylor confirmed.  
  
Lloyd turned in a circle, studying the aisle. It was lit in garish shades thanks to the harsh light from their phones, but other than that, it held no clues.  
  
“Kai said it just disappeared,” Lloyd mused. “It must have been with a Constrictai, they’re the ones who drill tunnels, Uncle Wu said.”  
  
“That’s no help,” Skylor said. “The floor is concrete.”  
  
“Yeah, but Wu said they could get through almost anything,” Lloyd said. “I thought you were the resident Serpentine expert?”  
  
“My dad was mostly into Anacondrai,” Skylor said.  
  
“They could have drilled up into the warehouse,” Lloyd mused. “We could find where they came in.”  
  
“That would take forever,” Skylor pointed out.  
  
“Yeah, plus they've probably filled it in already,” Lloyd said. “The ground here is pretty soft.”  
  
He stopped, eyes narrowing in thought.  
  
Kai _had_ seen the Venomari somewhere else, too…  
  
“I’ve decided you have a ‘blooming criminal’ face,” Skylor declared.  
  
“Don’t,” he said, sticking his tongue out. “This is my ‘blooming hero’ face.”  
  
“Borg Tower is like the more secure place in Ninjago,” Skylor said.  
  
“Yeah, but not if Serpentine are able to just sneak it!” Lloyd argued. “Plus, Uncle Wu will never find them at his pace. If I find out what they’re after, I find out where they’ll be next,” he said, suddenly sounding very sure of himself. “We could catch them in the act!”  
  
Skylor mused for a moment. “Then I think we’d better bring Cole and Nya when that happens,” she said. “Unless you wanna get totaled.”  
  
  
  
The next day at lunch, Skylor and Lloyd explained their slightly-illegal expedition to Nya and Cole. (They also explained what the heck they were doing to Cole, who to his credit didn’t freak out.)  
  
“I already tried to get into Borg’s cameras,” Lloyd said, keeping his voice really low. “His security system is ironclad though. It might be months for me to figure out how to get in.”  
  
“Actually,” Cole said, “I might know a guy who can help us.”  
  
“Really?” Nya asked curiously. “You just happen to know a guy who can hack into _Borg Tower?_ ”  
  
“Yeah,” Cole said defensively. “He’s… um, a little strange, but trust me, he’s the best.”  
  
“Where can we find him?” Lloyd asked.  
  
“In the library,” Cole said. “He spends lunch there reading.”  
  
“Doesn’t he need to eat?” Nya asked, right as Skylor said “He’s a student here?!”  
  
“Yeah… about that,” Cole said a little sheepishly. “I think you’ll understand once you meet him.”  
  
So they quickly made their way to the library, hoping to meet this person before the next class started.  
  
At a table near the back was a tallish but narrow-shouldered teen with pale skin and white hair. His eyes were an intensely vibrant blue, and he was turning pages in a biology book about every five seconds.  
  
“Hey, Zane,” Cole said, sliding into the seat across from him. “I’ve got some friend’s I’d like you to meet.”  
  
Zane set the book down and turned to meet them, eyes scanning up and down. “Skylor Chen, Nya Smith, Lloyd Garmadon,” he recited, freaking the heck outta Lloyd.  
  
“Um, hello,” Skylor said, folding her arms. Lloyd doubted she liked being called by her full name.  
  
“Hello, I am Zane Julien, a normal teen at Ninjago High,” Zane said in a soft but monotone voice.  
  
“Ok,” Skylor blinked. “Um, nice to meet you.”  
  
Lloyd had to admit, anybody who could throw Skylor a loop like this was pretty awesome.  
  
“We were wondering if you were up for helping us with a project,” Cole said, keeping his vice low. “We need to get inside Borg Tower to look for something. We were also wondering if you could help us with the security systems?”  
  
To Lloyd’s infinite shock, Zane’s face transformed into a blue _loading_ bar that slowly filled in before his features reappeared. “This endeavor is classified as illegal,” he reported.  
  
“Right,” Cole said, shooting the three of them a look that said _Don’t say a word._  
  
Zane was an android!  
  
Lloyd knew they existed, but he’d never expected to see one - this was so cool! And Zane went to their school?!  
  
“I cannot help you commit crimes,” Zane concluded.  
  
“Right,” Cole repeated, folding his hands with the look of the ultimate negotiator. “But this isn’t a crime, it’s an act of teenage rebellion.”  
  
The loading bar popped up again. Cole winked at Lloyd.  
  
“As a normal human teenager, I should love to help you engage in an act of teenage rebellion,” Zane grinned. Lloyd broke into a smile.  
  
“We can meet at my place after school,” Skylor said. “My aunt’s gone on business for the next month or so and I’ve got a great computer setup.”  
  
“Wonderful!” Zane beamed. “I shall see you after school.”  
  
He turned back to his biology book, speeding through pages.  
  
Cole nodded to lead them back out.  
  
“Great job, Cole,” Nya said. “He’s pretty cool.”  
  
“Yeah, I think so too,” Cole said fondly.  
  
“A bit on the weird side,” Skylor said. “What’s with the insistence that he’s ‘a normal human teen?’”  
  
Cole shrugged. “Zane can be a little odd, but he’s always seemed pretty human to me. He’s a god guy.”  
  
“I liked him,” Lloyd piped up. “Thanks for volunteering your house,” he told Skylor.  
  
She gave him a two-fingered salute. “No problem, Oh Fluffy One.” Lloyd groaned.  
  
“You guys just let me know if you need to hitch a ride to my place,” Skylor said, waving as she headed to class.  
  
  
  
Lloyd climbed into the back of Skylor’s car, wincing as his knee throbbed. Nya was in the passenger seat, talking with Kai on the phone about something or other. Lloyd shot his mom another text, just to reassure her he was fine and going to a friend’s place.  
  
Skylor put the car into first gear and pulled out of the parking lot, merging into traffic while fiddling with the radio.  
  
“Keep ya eyes on the road and ya hands upon the WHEEL,” Lloyd sang at the top of his lungs, causing Skylor to shoot a glare his way.  
  
“ROADHOUSE BLUES,” Nya hollered back, leaning away from her phone, right as Skylor said, “I hate you.”  
  
Lloyd stuck his tongue out while wondering what Kai must be thinking.  
  
They pulled into one of those subdivided apartment neighborhoods where everything looks the same, which caused Lloyd to be very impressed with Skylor’s navigational skills. Finally she parked outside Generic Apartment Building 12, telling them to get out of her car or risk the fire of her wrath.  
  
They climbed a couple sets of exterior stairs, lugging their backpacks behind them until Skylor swiped a keycard in a door, kicking it open.  
  
She tossed her bag onto the couch and flipped the lights on.  
  
Lloyd set his backpack on the floor near the door, shoving it to the wall so it’d be out of the way.  
  
“Hey, are you limping?” Nya asked, right as Skylor shouted “HEADS UP!”  
  
Between the question he wanted to avoid and the frozen bag of peas flying at him, Lloyd’s brain short circuited, which resulted in Lloyd barely catching the peas (with his face) and stumbling back into Nya.  
  
“Thanks,” he mumbled, eyes on the floor, as he picked up the frozen bag.  
  
“Sit on the couch and elevate it,” Skylor instructed.  
  
“Ugh, you’re unfairly perceptive,” Lloyd grumbled as Nya punished his secrecy by ruffling his hair. He ducked under her, heading for the couch.  
  
Cole and Zane knocked a few minutes later, looking a little confused at the sight of Lloyd sprawling upside-down on the couch (“You said to _elevate_ it!” he protested when Skylor made him lay normally.)  
  
“Computer’s over here,” Skylor said, typing in her password and offering Zane the chair.  
  
“Wonderful, thank you,” he said, taking a seat. “Which area are we infiltrating?”  
  
“Underground storerooms,” Lloyd piped up. “Especially any of them that have recently received shipments.”  
  
He couldn’t see much of the screen from the couch, and Nya gave him the Older Sister Glare of Doom when he attempted to walk over to the computer, so Lloyd resigned himself to hearing progress reports secondhand. Honestly, even Lloyd had no idea what the jargon Zane spouted meant.  
  
Eventually the rest of them wandered off from the computer. They played some card games, gathered around the coffee table so Lloyd could play. He was sitting upside-down again, to Skylor’s chagrin, but he managed to play Uno _and_ Go Fish upside-down so he considered it a win. Skylor eventually ordered pizza, sparking the Great Pizza Topping Debate, wherein Lloyd valiantly defended pineapple but was crushed in the throes of the pepperoni lovers.  
  
Time passed. The frozen peas thawed and Skylor replaced them with frozen blueberries. Lloyd texted his mom again to let her know he was safe and stuff.  
  
Eventually the sun sank, plunging the city into its nightly neon glow. (It was slightly better here than where Lloyd lived, actually.)  
  
“We’d better get the babies home,” Skylor said, stretching.  
  
“Excuse you,” Nya scoffed. “You have a unique skill for making every sentence you utter insulting.”  
  
“Yeah, what Nya said,” Lloyd agreed, stifling a traitor yawn.  
  
“Uh huh,” Skylor said, returning her blueberries to the freezer. “D’you need me to carry you to the car again?” she smirked.  
  
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” Lloyd howled, drowning out the snickers from the other three. Just to spite them, he stood up and blew a raspberry at Skylor before scooping up his bag and heading for the door.  
  
“I can halt my progress,” Zane said. “I hope you don’t mind, Skylor, but I’ve disabled your computer's automatic shut-off timer. If it stays on and running all night, I can return tomorrow morning and continue my contribution to the teenage rebellion.”  
  
“Um, thanks,” Skylor said. Lloyd was 90% sure she had no idea what Zane was talking about.  
  
They walked back down to the parking lot, now lit with harsh whitish lights where moths flocked to the illumination.  
  
“See you guys tomorrow,” Cole waved. “Zane and I’ll come in the morning.”  
  
“Bye,” Skylor saluted. “In the car, youngins,” she said in a low-pitched voice.  
  
Nya rolled her eyes, hopping into the passenger seat before Lloyd could call shotgun.  
  
Nya had Skylor drop her at a bus stop, insisting that it wasn’t far from where she and Kai lived. She waved goodbye before walking off, backlight by the streetlights.  
  
“Thanks, Skylor,” Lloyd said, stifling another yawn as she pulled up to the curb at his apartment.  
  
“See you tomorrow,” she said, flashing a smile.  
  
  
  
“Here is a floorplan of the storage rooms,” Zane said, pointing to the first printout. “This is a list of recent shipments they received, and where the shipments are from.” _Yes,_ Lloyd thought. “This is the guard schedule. These are the access codes. And this is your entry/exit schedule.”  
  
It seemed Zane had gone above and beyond what they needed - he was deep in Borg’s system, and he’d get them in and out without a hitch if things went right.  
  
“We can meet at that little corner deli,” Lloyd said.  
  
“A perfect rendezvous point,” Zane agreed. The android then proceeded to outline their route and plan of entry. “You’ll have precisely 1.5 hours to search before your window of opportunity to escape undetected closes,” Zane said. “I will be here the whole time, directing you via cellphone.”  
  
“Right,” Lloyd said. “This is pretty awesome, Zane. Thanks.”  
  
“It is my pleasure to engage in an act of teenage rebellion with my friends,” Zane said, smiling warmly.  
  
“So we need to get in, figure out what they took if possible, and look for a tunnel,” Lloyd explained. “The Venomari general could only have gotten in with the help of a Constrictai, since they’d need to drill in from below. Unlike with the museum and Kai’s warehouse, though, Borg Tower is built on solid bedrock, since the foundations have to support so much weight. They wouldn’t be able to fill in the tunnel, so they probably tried to hide it long enough to let them get away unnoticed. All we have to do is find the tunnel and follow it.”  
  
“Woah, that’s a horrible plan,” Cole protested. “Those snakes are legendary for their fighting prowess. We can’t just walk down their secret tunnel and come back unharmed.”  
  
“One, Uncle Wu says I’m super close to figuring out the Spinjitzu tornado,” Lloyd argued. “Two, Skylor’s a great martial artist, and three, between the two of us, if we spend the whole week training you and Nya, we should be at least able to get away,” Lloyd said. “Plus, the plan is just to spy on them, not pull a Garmadon and straight-up attack.” Lloyd leaned back, feeling pretty confident about the plan. All they had to do was sneak in and see what the tunnel could tell them.  
  
“I’m in,” Nya said, looking eager. “I don’t actually have work this week except for Wednesday afternoon.”  
  
“Me too,” Skylor added.  
  
“And me,” Cole said after a moment. “We could do something really good here.”  
  
“I, of course, will continue to help from the computer,” Zane reassured them.  
  
“Great,” Lloyd grinned. “We can start training right now.”  
  
They spent the majority of Saturday training on Skylor’s rooftop. Lloyd was mostly teaching them defensive moves, which ended up working fine since that was mostly what Wu had started him on. Many of them were second nature to Lloyd by now.  
  
Cole was still grasping the concepts pretty well, and Nya, aided by fierce competitiveness and a natural knack for it, wasn’t doing bad either. Lloyd was reasonably confident that by next Saturday they’d be able to defend themselves, at least.  
  
Even Zane ended up joining him, and even if his movements were jerky at first he was catching on pretty quickly.  
  
  
  
“I’m home,” Lloyd called that night, hoping his mom was also home.  
  
“Hi, sweetie,” her voice echoed from her room. Koko came out, giving him a hug.  
  
“Woah,” Lloyd said, breaking into a grin. “You’re in a really good mood.”  
  
“I’m just happy you’ve got friends,” his mom said, smiling. “You really deserve it,” she said, hugging him again.  
  
Lloyd wriggled happily, detaching himself from his mother. “Thanks,” he said. “Skylor said to tell you hi,” he added.  
  
His mom beamed. “She’s such a nice girl,” Koko said fondly.  
  
Lloyd snorted, remembering how Skylor had judo-flipped him into the roof earlier and then created an impromptu victory dance to rub it in. He was _soooo_ sore from all the training they’d done today…  
  
“How’d your day go?” Lloyd questioned as he filled a glass with water.  
  
“It was okay,” Koko sighed. “Mrs. Cahren wants me to work next Sunday.”  
  
Lloyd winced. Finding work had been _really hard_ , and he was pretty sure Mrs. Cahren only employed his mom because she knew she could get away with literally anything. Lloyd had spent months looking for a job earlier in the year but after one encounter left him with a sprained wrist and a face full of paint (don’t ask) his mother forbade him to go looking anymore.  
  
It seemed to be the story of his life - Uncle Wu was Garmadon’s brother, but he also fought him all the time so the people loved him. Koko was Garmadon’s ex, but she also used to be Lady IronDragon, which helped her along at least a little. Lloyd was just… Garmadon’s son, apparently with no redeeming qualities.  
  
Maybe if he could find the Serpentine and defeat them before Wu did people would see him as something more than _Garmadon’s Something_ too.  
  
  
  
“I gotta say, this whole thing is pretty cool,” Lloyd said, awed. “I was barely able to hack into the police database but you got into _Borg Tower_ like it was nothing.”  
  
“Were you committing a misdemeanor or an act of teenage rebellion?” Zane asked curiously.  
  
“Um, rebellion,” Lloyd said, leaving out the part about how he’d done it to help his uncle from behind the scenes.  
  
“Awesome!” Zane said happily.  
  
Lloyd grinned - he really liked Zane. The taller teen was a bit eccentric, sure, but he was genuine and nice, and he’d done something few people had done for Lloyd - he’d judged him by his actions. (According to Zane, Lloyd had done a disappointingly nonexistent amount of rebellious teen things.)  
  
Zane had also stated that he found no record of Lloyd committing any offences, and it was enough to convince Zane to befriend him. It was nice to be judged for his own actions insteads of Garmadon’s.  
  
“It is time for you and Skylor to depart, if you wish to make it to the deli on time,” Zane said. “Good luck!” he said cheerily, as if they were going to a card game or something.  
  
Lloyd grinned confidently as he waved goodbye. “See you later,” he said.  
  
  
  
“Sup, soon-to-be partners-in-crime,” Nya greeted with a peace sign. She had a black shirt on, which was a change from her usual blues and reds. Even Skylor had forgone her usual orange preferences. (Cole, on the other hand, blended in perfectly since his preferred color was black.)  
  
Lloyd popped in an earbud, plugging the cord into his phone and calling Zane. “Alright, Zane,” he said by way of greeting. “We’re headed to the loading docks.” He noticed the others joining his call and plugging in their own earbuds. (But only one so they could still hear.)  
  
As the shadows of evening grew quicker and quicker, the group of four dashed to the huge garages surrounding the base of the tower, where employees parked and shipments were dropped off.  
  
“Tracking your position on camera feeds,” Zane reported. “Access code for the fifth door: 1378842753.” He spit out the code slow enough for Lloyd to type it in.  
  
The door rolled open; it was large enough to allow for a truck to enter the garage, but the four teens darted inside and closed the door after them.  
  
“This garage connects directly to the supply rooms I surmised Kai must have been in,” Zane informed them. “Door to the right.”  
  
They followed his instructions as he verbally led them under the tallest skyscraper in Ninjago City, hall by hall, feeding them codes and shutting off alarm systems long enough for them to get through.  
  
Lloyd and his team had a few close calls with guards, but thanks to Zane’s incredible work, they got through to the storeroom in no time without a hitch.  
  
“Zane, you’re completely awesome,” Lloyd said, grinning into his mic as Nya and Cole fist-bumped in victory.  
  
“The crates unloaded by Kai’s shipping company are in the next room over,” Zane told them. “They are marked with the company’s logo and shipping information.”  
  
“Sweet,” Lloyd grinned.  
  
He could really see why Borg Tower would be a good place to hide something somebody wanted to keep away from dangerous people like the Serpentine. The security was insane.  
  
“I think these are the right ones,” Skylor said. Against one wall were several metal shelving units, stacked with wooden crates of all sizes, much like the ones from the warehouse Lloyd and Skylor had previously explored.  
  
“They’re from all over,” Cole noted, checking tags with his phone flashlight.  
  
“Yeah,” Nya agreed.  
  
“Check inside,” Lloyd said, having an idea. “It’s possible they left the empty crate behind.”  
  
They checked every crate delivered, and all had something within (although the items seemed random - an old teapot, a jewel so massive Lloyd bet it was fake, blue and black armour, four hand-blade thingeys.) He didn’t bother checking the tags - he just wanted to see if there even was an empty crate.  
  
“Hey, this one’s empty!” Cole whisper-shouted.  
  
“You have .75 hours left,” Zane informed them.  
  
“Thanks,” Skylor said as Lloyd rushed over eagerly to check the crate.  
  
The crate wasn’t small, but it was full of packing material that made Lloyd feel like the object it had once housed had been small.  
  
“Whatever was in here is long gone,” Cole said.  
  
“Hey, look,” Skylor said, leaning into the crate and digging through the packing material. Coming up, she smuggly showed her find - a small, slightly reflective green scale. “I think it’s safe to say that this is definitely the right one,” she said.  
  
Lloyd glanced at the empty space nestling in the padding. “Let’s check the tag,” he said.  
  
“Found it,” Nya said, pointing. Lloyd leaned over to look, and then froze in shock.  
  
He must be seeing it wrong, right?  
  
Lloyd blinked, and the words and numbers stayed the same.  
  
“Hey, you alright?” Cole asked.  
  
“I- that’s my _uncle’s_ address,” Lloyd said.  
  
  
  
It didn’t make any sense.  
  
His uncle was trying to find the Serpentine just as much as Lloyd was, right?  
  
Lloyd thought back to when Wu had asked him for help. _If they are after what I suspect they are, Ninjago is in grave danger._  
  
He blinked in shock as realization crashed down on him. Wu knew whatever it was the Serpentine were searching for.  
  
Which meant he might know where they would be next.  
  
“What do you mean it’s _Wu’s_ address,” Nya said, folding her arms.  
  
“The warehouse he has on the docks,” Lloyd said, fighting to control his breathing. How could Wu have not told him? Wu knew Lloyd wanted to help! “It’s where he trains me and keeps a lot of his artifacts and stuff. This crate was sent from there.”  
  
“I bet the other one was too,” Skylor said, quick to catch on.  
  
“He might know where the Serpentine are headed next,” Lloyd said. “If he knows what they’re looking for.”  
  
“Do we go back or continue with the plan?” Nya asked.  
  
Lloyd thought for a moment, closing his eyes and trying to put his thoughts in order.  
  
“Follow through with the plan,” he said. “We’re already here, it’d make no sense to waste the chance. And now we have to get the Serpentine first,” he said darkly. “I’ve gotta show Wu I can be helpful.”  
  
“Begin searching for the tunnel,” Zane said. “I surmise it will be hidden in this same chamber as the Serpentine would probably desire to expose themselves as little as possible. Look for large items it could be hidden behind or under.”  
  
They split up, moving swiftly through the room searching for a tunnel. Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.  
  
“You have .5 hours left to complete your act of teenage rebellion,” Zane informed them.  
  
A few minutes later, Skylor said, “I’ve got a big, dark hole,” sounding pleased.  
  
She’d shoved a few sheets of metal side to reveal a rough tunnel in the concrete. Sure enough, it sloped downwards into bedrock.  
  
“Nice,” Lloyd grinned despite the shock he was still experiencing.  
  
He went first - this was his idea after all. If someone was gonna get jumped, Lloyd wanted it to be him.  
  
The tunnel was dark, the walls and floor were rough on his hands, and the air inside was cold and hosted an odd smell.  
  
“Ok, this is weird,” Nya said. “It feels familiar.”  
  
It continued sloping down, sharper and sharper, until it was kind of hard to keep from slipping. Lloyd had to wonder how a dude with a snake tail had managed it.  
The tunnel suddenly leveled out. “Does anybody know what direction we’re heading?” Lloyd asked. Zane didn’t reply - but of course, they were pretty far underground. He doubted they had reception.  
  
“I think east,” Cole said. “We’ve mostly been going straight. And I have a pretty good sense of direction down here.”  
  
The tunnel continued long enough that Lloyd began to be worried about their time, so they moved quicker.  
  
“Something about this is still weirdly familiar,” Nya said again, sounding like she was thinking hard about something.”  
  
They tried to keep quiet as they moved, but it was hard in the dark. The tunnel soon began sloping up, though, which meant it probably would end soon.  
  
Lloyd’s thoughts were proved correct as suddenly Zane’s voice came in over their phones - they’d gotten reception back.  
  
“-are you? I repeat, you have five minutes left before it will be too late to escape undetected!”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Lloyd said. “Sorry we blipped out, we were really far underground. I think we’re at the surface now, so I doubt we’ll need to go back through Borg’s Tower. Hang on, let me check up ahead.”  
  
The tunnel suddenly turned straight upwards, with rough handholds duck into the bedrock. Lloyd climbed up, whispering to the others to stay behind.  
  
The exit was covered with a corroded sheet of metal. Lloyd lifted it ever so gently, peeking out.  
  
He saw what looked like an abandoned garage, seemingly completely empty.  
  
Slowly and silently, Lloyd eased the rusty metal back and hopped out. “We’re alone guys, come on out,” he said.  
  
The others followed as Lloyd glanced around. They were in a small garage, empty except for some scrap metal like the one used to half-heartedly conceal the tunnel. Other than that… it looked like the Serpentine had just used this as an entry point for their tunnel.  
  
Lloyd sighed. “It looks like this is a dead end,” he reported. “Not to the tunnel, but to this plan,” he clarified for Zane. “Except I can still talk to Uncle Wu,” Lloyd said, determined to get the answer out of his uncle.  
  
“Ah, crap,” Cole said a second later. “I gotta be home in like twenty minutes or my dad’s gonna lose his mind.”  
  
“I can give Zane a ride, don’t worry,” Skylor offered.  
  
“Thanks, you’re the best,” Cole said. They found the exit to the garage and emerged in an alley that led to a lesser-used street. Lloyd sighed.  
  
“Bye,” Lloyd told Cole as the taller teen jogged back to where he’d left his car.  
  
“I can get home from here,” Lloyd offered as he glanced at the name of the street.  
  
“It’s not a problem to drive you,” Skylor said.  
  
“Nah, I need to think about some stuff,” Lloyd said. “I’ll see you guys later,” he said with a parting wave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so they became criminals! :DDD  
> Also this chapter brings us Zane! I hope he doesn't seem out of character, I tried to mix his show and movie personalities to work for the story. (I liked his movie humor and his show empathy so I kinda smooshed 'em together.)  
> Aaaaand we're past the halfway point! Thanks for reading and remember to comment!


	5. Chapter 5

Since his mom now had to work tomorrow, Lloyd would have spent the day training with Master Wu. Now, he had other plans.  
  
He didn’t exactly go home.  
  
Lloyd texted his mom and told him he’d be at Uncle Wu’s a little late.  
  
He arrived at the docks around ten, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets to ward off the cold.  
  
Lloyd sat at the edge of a dock not far from the Bounty to put his thoughts in order.  
  
Wu knew the Serpentine had stolen the map and stuff from the museum. He might not know what the map led to - Ouroboros, the ancient Serpentine city. He obviously knew what else the Serpentine were trying to find, and chances where he’d gotten to two of the objects first. Lloyd recalled his previous thought about how Borg Tower would be a great place to hide something you didn’t want found.  
  
Wu had shipped both items to Borg, hoping to hide them from the Serpentine. One had been intercepted before it even made it to the Tower, and the other had been stolen from the Tower soon after arriving.  
  
What else might Wu be able to tell him? As much as Lloyd wanted to confront his uncle and ask why he’d kept information from him, he didn’t want to reveal his hand. If he did, his uncle would try harder to keep him uninvolved.  
  
Wu knew what the Serpentine were after before. If there was anything else, he might know what and where it could be found. If Lloyd could get there before them, he could- what? Trap them? Defeat them in battle all on his own? Lloyd groaned.  
  
His mind whirled - he had no idea what he wanted to do.  
  
Suddenly, Lloyd’s phone rang, showing Skylor’s number. He hurried to accept the call, pressing the phone to his ear.  
  
“Hey Skylor,” he said. “What’s up?”  
  
“I’ve been thinking about all the evidence we found,” she said over the phone. “You know how my dad was obsessed with the Serpentine?”  
  
“Yeah?” Lloyd asked.  
  
“He used to tell me stories about the greatest Serpentine of all. It was so powerful it didn’t even have human features. It looked like a snake, except for the spikey crown of frills it had. And except for how it was like super huge. Anyways. It was called the Great Devourer. It was said to grow bigger with everything it devoured.”  
  
“That sounds terrifying,” Lloyd said. “What happened to it?”  
  
“There was a war ages and ages ago. Dad would never tell me much about it. But I know it got locked away underneath an ancient lost city. There were four keys to the tomb where it was trapped. They’re called the fangblades.”  
  
Lloyd felt an icky kind of fear roiling in his stomach. “Ouroboros,” he said. “They stole the map to the lost city of Ouroboros.”  
  
“Right,” Skylor said, voice heavy. “And now they’ve stolen two _somethings._ ”  
  
Lloyd swallowed his fear. “You think they’re trying to awaken the Great Devourer?”  
  
“The Serpentine got entombed when they lost that war with humanity they had ages ago. The war _Wu_ fought it,” Skylor said. “Some of my ancestors fought in it too. The Serpentine lost and got _entombed._ Five _tribes_ got locked underground for centuries if my dad was right. They’re out somehow and I bet they’re ready to get revenge on humanity.”  
  
Lloyd frowned. This was all news to him - Wu hadn’t told him much about Serpentine... or anything else, apparently.  
  
“This is big,” Skylor said. “We have to find them and stop them.”  
  
“I still want to do this without Wu,” Lloyd said. “But you’re right. This is huge. I can’t let people get hurt just ‘cause I wanna prove myself to-” Lloyd stopped, struck by a sudden thought.  
  
“Lloyd?” Skylor asked, sounding worried.  
  
“I just had a great idea,” he blurted, words blurring together in his excitement. “I know how we can beat the Serpentine! We can build mechs, just like Garmadon does! I’ve been helping Master Wu study my dad’s mechs for years, I know all about them. Combine that with Nya’s know-how and Zane’s coding skills, and we could create mechs big enough to defeat the Serpentine on our own! If they really just escaped from tombs after centuries of incarceration, they won’t know what hit them.”  
  
“I dunno,” Skylor said after a few moments of pregnant silence. “That’s a tall order.”  
  
“Come on,” Lloyd pleaded, excited. He stood up and started pacing. “I know you want to prove yourself as much as I do. I want to show the city that I’m not _just_ Garmadon’s son. You can show everyone that you’re not _just_ the daughter of a cult leader. We can _save_ the city even though our dads tried to hurt it. We could be _heroes._ ”  
  
He could imagine Skylor’s face as she made her choice.  
  
“I’m in,” she said. _I trust you,_ she meant, and it meant the world to Lloyd.  
  
  
  
“Alright, spill the beans,” Kai said, flopping down on their table and giving them all a heart attack.  
  
“Kai!” Nya said, hand on her chest. “I thought you had tutoring again.”  
  
“I’m skipping to find out what you five are up to,” he said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Where do you keep dragging my sister off to and what are you up to?” His eyes drilled holes in Lloyd. Dangit, Lloyd thought he was getting over the panic.  
  
“Um,” he stuttered, trying to buy time. “We- um.”  
  
Nya rolled her eyes. “Despite his total lack of subtlety and _extreme rudeness,_ ” Nya said, elbowing her older brother. “I think we can trust Kai. He’s already helped us out anyways.”  
  
Kai only looked more and more suspicious and a little angry, which was causing Lloyd’s mouth to forget how to work. He knew Kai probably wasn’t gonna hurt him - the older teen even said he wouldn’t, but Lloyd couldn’t help it, other people had been terrifying him for most of his life.  
  
“Hey, can you chill out?” Skylor snapped, obviously noticing Lloyd’s distress.  
  
“Yeah dude, tone it down, Lloyd hasn’t done anything,” Cole said, jumping to his defense.  
  
“Lloyd has a boringly clean record,” Zane added.  
  
Kai glanced around, then at Nya, before softening his glare a little bit. “Fine,” he snapped. “But I still want an answer. If you’re putting my sister in danger, I’ll make you regret it.”  
  
“ _KAI,_ ” Nya said, sounding exasperated. “It’s fine guys, he’s just way overprotective,” she said.  
  
“With good reason!” Kai argued. “You’re hanging out with Garmadon’s _son,_ I think a little worry is warranted.”  
  
That, more than anything, was what snapped Lloyd to attention. Being called _Garmadon’s son,_ once again, even though he’d spent the last several weeks doing everything he could to find a way to prove the world wrong about him.  
  
“I’m not doing anything _evil,_ ” he snapped, finally finding his voice. “We’re _trying_ to track down an ancient evil that’s returned to Ninjago and keep it from devouring the city, thank you very much.”  
  
Lloyd almost immediately regretted snapping, both because he was still worried about Kai’s anger and because he really didn’t want anybody to overhear him.  
  
Kai didn’t seem to be angrier, though. Instead he just demanded they explain to him in detail what was going on.  
  
So they did - they explained from the beginning, when Wu asked Lloyd to help him get into the museum’s security feeds, to when he accidentally met Cole, to when they heard Kai talking about the Serpentine general he’d seen, to when they infiltrated Borg’s tower, up until Lloyd and Skylor’s phone conversation the night previous.  
  
Kai blew out a breath when they finally finished the story - lunch was almost over, which meant they were running out of time.  
  
“You’re going to build mechs to stop the Serpentine before they unleash the Great Devourer?” he clarified, effectively summing up their plan.  
  
“Yes,” Nya said, sounding excited.  
  
“I’m in,” he said.  
  
“What?” Lloyd asked, surprised. Maybe he’d misheard Kai?  
  
“I have to protect Nya,” he said, as if this were obvious. “There’s no way I can get you to quit, so I guess I have to come too,” he said.  
  
“Cool,” Cole saide, fistbumping Kai. “Welcome to the team.”  
  
“It is time for class,” Zane informed them. “Unless we skipped as another act of teenage rebellion! We could ‘act out!’”  
  
“Nope, sorry bud, I don’t wanna get detention,” Cole said, laughing a little.  
  
“Let’s meet in the robotics club room after school today,” Nya said. “We can start working on plans there.”  
  
“I’ve got lots of notes about my dad’s mechs with me,” Lloyd said. We’ll be able to go off those.  
  
“Great,” Skylor said, casting Kai one last glance that seemed to say _Mess with Lloyd and you’ll_ see _an overprotective sibling,_ and the look made Lloyd feel wanted and protected and loved and all kinds of good things. “See you guys then,” she said with a grin that reminded Lloyd not of a cat this time, but a tiger, ready to pounce on its prey.  
  
  
  
The room where the robotics club met was pretty small, but it was large enough to house the six of them. Lloyd, Nya, and Zane immediately got to work, putting their heads together to start conceptualizing the mechs. Cole and Kai sat down at the table too, talking about everything they’d figured out so far. Skylor was jumping back and forth between both discussions, offering to each.  
  
And so it was that nobody noticed a seventh person was in the room until he said, “If you change the structure there, it’ll make it lighter and faster.”  
  
Everyone looked up so quickly Lloyd was pretty sure he heard multiple necks cracking.  
  
Their visitor was short - maybe even shorter than Lloyd. He was pretty small, with thin fingers that looked like they were made for inventing. Curly auburn hair framed nervous blue eyes and a splattering of freckles.  
  
“Um.” Skylor said, for once _completely_ lost for words.  
  
“I wasn’t spying!” the kid blurted, looking terrified all of a sudden. “I just heard you talking about mechs form the hall, and the door wasn’t closed all the way, so I thought it was okay, and I only heard a little bit about Serpentine and I was super curious, and I probably should have left but it was interesting and I’m sorry!”  
  
“Geez, man, take a breath before you pass out,” Cole said, sounding genuinely concerned.  
  
“Mhmm,” the kid nodded, clamping his mouth shut.  
  
“Jay Walker, age 15, 10th grade,” Zane recited.  
  
Jay looked like he was about to freak out at that, before Cole jumped in to explain, “Don’t mind Zane, he just pays attention to everyone. I’m Cole.”  
  
“I’m Nya,” Nya said, “and this is my brother Kai. I know he looks like a useless grump but he’s nice most of the time.”  
  
Lloyd could have sworn smoke was coming out of Kai’s ears as Skylor introduced herself.  
  
“Um, I’m Lloyd,” Lloyd said, waiting for the moment when Jay recognized- Yup, there it was.  
  
“Lloyd _Garmadon?_ ” Jay asked. “Oops, obviously, I know that. Um. Are you nice?” he asked.  
  
Skylor rolled her eyes, but Lloyd coughed and said, “Yup, doing my best to be nice.”  
  
“U-um, okay,” the kid stuttered, and Lloyd felt an odd kind of protection for this kid who seemed even more anxious than Lloyd usually was.  
  
“So, what do we do with him?” Kai asked, leaning back in his chair.  
  
Jay’s eyes widened nervously at those words and Lloyd hurried to say, “ _nothing,_ because we’re all super nice,” before the freckled teen could freak out.  
  
“You know,” Nya said, looking contemplative. “He could be helpful. I’ve seen him in robotics, he’s in the club too. This guy has a mind like you wouldn’t believe. He can come up with almost anything.”  
  
Jay’s freckles were hidden in a blush at the compliment and his eyes flicked to the floor.  
  
“Come on, Jay,” Nya said, and Lloyd noticed she was making an effort to keep her tone inviting. So she’d noticed Jay’s nervousness too. “It’d be totally awesome if you wanted to help, but you gotta promise to keep us a secret.”  
  
“Yup, I can do that, totally,” Jay blurted, voice speeding up again. “Um, I do wanna help.”  
  
So they kind of just absorbed Jay into the table, and Lloyd immediately saw what Nya was talking about - this kid was a _genius._ He talked pretty fast, but Nya seemed to be used to it at least, and she was able to help the rest of them keep pace with his high-speed ramblings. He had the idea of a mech meant to function in and out of water, in case they needed to get into the ocean; he had the ideas for flamethrowers on Kai’s mech that had the brunette looking scarily excited; he came up with a way for Cole to control his mech without having to learn much about the mechanics and stuff.  
  
Once Jay got going, they couldn’t get him to stop - and they didn’t really want to. He was a fountain of ideas that seemed impossible, but he was able to back them up with solid methods of production. Lloyd felt left in the dust between the combined enthusiasm of Jya, Nya, and Zane.  
  
By the time they realized they had to _get out before a teacher found them,_ they had solid concepts for four mechs.  
  
  
  
Jay and Lloyd ended up walking home together for a good portion of the way, since they lived on the same side of the city. Jay was a real chatterbox, but Lloyd didn’t mind, because even though he’d just met him, the kid seemed fine walking alone with him. (As alone as you could be in the ever-busy streets of Ninjago.)  
  
Jay had been homeschooled until highschool, when his parents moved to Ninjago. (That might have had something to do with his lack of fear of Lloyd, actually.) He used to live in the Sea of Sands, and he’d grown up in a scrapyard his parents still owned, which was part of why he knew so much about tech. He liked video games. He didn’t have any siblings. He was a grade ahead because he really liked studying, his favorite classes were science and math. Jay struggled with anxiety (Lloyd’s guess was accurate, then) and that was why he’d been homeschooled while his parents could afford it. He didn’t much like public school, but he liked all the opportunities it granted, and he liked the city more than the desert.  
  
Lloyd found himself liking the boy more and more as they walked - he was just really, really nice, and he had a happy kind of energy buzzing in the air around him that even seemed to give Lloyd a little more energy too.  
  
Lloyd waved goodbye as Jay changed paths to get to his own apartment, smiling and looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.  
  
Their apartment was empty when he got there, and Lloyd sighed. He hated that his mom was gone all the time, and he hated how hard she worked. Maybe he could try for work again after the Serpentine thing was done… he didn’t want to go behind Koko’s back any more though, so he’d have to convince her to let him first.  
  
Lloyd made a sandwich for dinner and sat down to work on his homework, which he’d been doing his best to keep up with even though life had been extra busy lately.  
  
He kept thinking about Jay, with his big heart and quick tongue and lightning-fast intelligence.  
  
Finally, he knew what it was his subconscious was trying to tell him. He logged into his phone and pulled up the group chat.  
  
_**Lloyd:** We should add Jay to the team._  
  
  
  
Lloyd was late for class.  
  
_Super_ late for class, on the worst possible day, because they were gonna meet in the robotics room again to talk about mechs, and if Lloyd got detention he’d barely catch the tail end of that.  
  
But he’d gotten distracted! He’d found a _cat_ in the halls, and it had a collar which meant it was somebody’s _baby,_ and he couldn’t just let it wander helplessly! So Lloyd had taken it to the front doors and released it, and then had to run to avoid a janitor so he wouldn’t get caught, and then he was on the total wrong side of the building, and now he was _super super late._  
  
Lloyd was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t notice Chen until he was practically on top of him. Panic spiked in his lungs as his heart did a kickflip in his chest while Lloyd jumped back, shoulders shooting up to his ears.  
  
Right before he could spin around and run the other way, he noticed who Chen had shoved against the wall - it was _Jay._  
  
And, oh no, it looked like he was about to have an actual panic attack, because he was staring at the ground and obviously trying to measure his breaths but Lloyd knew how terrifying and cruel Chen could be, and Jay couldn’t escape Chen because he was even smaller than Lloyd was.  
  
Still panicking, Lloyd’s eyes darted between Chen, who looked like he’d be just as happy to switch to pummeling Lloyd as he would Jay, and Jay whose breathing was steadily getting faster and faster.  
  
Lloyd had said he wanted to protect the city. He’d said he wanted to prove himself to his uncle and mom.  
  
That meant doing the right thing no matter what, and that meant helping Jay _right now._ Even if it meant Chen would be even worse later.  
  
Lloyd made his choice, and said, “Leave him alone, Chen.”  
  
His voice didn’t even waver.  
  
Chen sneered, looking like this was the most hilarious thing he’d ever seen. “Or what, you’ll let me take you instead?” he asked.  
  
“Last warning,” Lloyd said, ignoring his racing heart and Jay’s widening eyes as he leaned back ever so slightly into a good position.  
  
“Make me,” Chen mocked, shoving Jay harder into the wall.  
  
Lloyd had to do something before it was too late.  
  
Lloyd’s fist shot out, cracking across Chen’s jaw with a sickening sound. Lloyd shoved him to the side and swept a leg into his knees, just like he had on accident with Cole. Chen fell back, shrieking in surprise as a hand went to his jaw.  
  
Lloyd snagged Jay by the arm and dragged him after him as he darted away.  
  
“Come on, hurry,” Lloyd said, keeping his voice low. “I know all the best hiding spots.” He glanced back to see Chen glaring at him with murder in his eyes and Lloyd ran faster.  
  
Before Chen could catch up, Lloyd whipped the door to a janitor’s closet open, shoved Jay inside, and jumped in after him, closing the door as quickly and quietly as possible. Shoving boxes of paper towels aside, he nodded to the dark empty space under the shelf. “Under, quick,” he said. Jay scooted under the shelf and Lloyd followed, tugging the box back and praying Chen wouldn’t find them, because he’d probably already dug himself a grave, but he couldn't stand to see sweet harmless Jay treated like that.  
  
Minutes passed in a terrifying silence as Jay and Lloyd hid under the shelf, trying to breathe quietly. (Jay was struggling, but Lloyd ended up grabbing his hand and hanging on, letting Jay squeeze his fingers until he couldn’t feel them anymore. It seemed to help.)  
  
Fifteen minutes passed, and then twenty, and Lloyd groaned inwardly, knowing there was no way he’d avoid detention now - Jay might get it too, come to think of it.  
  
Half an hour ticked by and Lloyd finally breathed. “I think we’re safe,” he said, daring to move the box aside and roll out. After a moment, Jay rolled out too.  
  
Lloyd flicked on the light, staying in the closet. He was still trying to get his heart rate under control.  
  
“T-thank you,” Jay stuttered, hands clenched into fists. He took a long, deep breath and unclenched them, looking Lloyd in the eye. “You’re really brave,” he said.  
  
Lloyd wanted to laugh - did Jay know how many times Lloyd had let people beat him up before? Did he know that Lloyd had probably just landed his mom in a realm of headache, since Chen would probably tell the principal and get Lloyd expelled?  
  
And yet Jay said he thought Lloyd was _brave._  
  
Lloyds swallowed, throat dry.  
  
“Thanks,” he managed. “You were about to have a panic attack, right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jay winced, like he expected Lloyd to make fun of him. “I know they’re dumb, but it’s really hard to-”  
  
“They’re not!” Lloyd blurted. “Sorry,” he said when Jay jumped. “They aren’t dumb,” Lloyd repeated in a softer tone. “It’s not your fault. Also, Chen sucks, so it’s totally normal to be freaking out around him.”  
  
Jay looked a little unconvinced, but Lloyd plowed on anyway.  
  
“I was just thinking, if you don’t mind, could you tell me how to help? I didn’t know what to do to help you this time and if you’re going to help us fight the Serpentine, I really want to be able to help you if you get freaked out again,” Lloyds said, cutting himself off before he could ramble any farther.  
  
“I-” Jay paused, seeming surprised. “That’s really nice,” he said finally. “And I guess just - talking, helps, and the hand holding was nice,” he winced, sounding embarrassed.  
  
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Lloyd ordered. “It’s not wrong to be scared. It’s human, and I’ll help you be brave too whenever you need it.”  
  
Jay smiled then, eyes crinkling in gratitude. “Thanks,” he said softly. “I want to be brave.”  
  
“You can be,” Lloyd said after a moment of thought.. “It’s a choice.”  
  
  
  
Lloyd and Jay both ended up in detention, which sucked. Lloyd had spent the rest of the day at the edge of his tether, just waiting for the teacher to look at him with _I told you so_ in their eyes and direct him to the principal's office, where he’d probably get expelled.  
  
It never happened.  
  
Lloyd didn’t know if this was better or worse, because it probably meant Chen was planning something.  
  
Upon rushing to the robotics room once they were released, Jay was surprised with a concept for a _Lightning Jet_ that Nya seemed pretty proud of. Jay was immediately in love with it, and Lloyd broke into a grin at Jay’s happiness despite the anxiety crushing his chest.  
  
Nya had a surprise for Lloyd too - a mech stylized like a dragon, long and thin and _absolutely the best thing ever, Nya you’re so awesome, thank you so much-_  
  
They had all the mechs conceptualized now, which meant they just had to work on getting the actual blueprints done.  
  
Nya’s mech was the water one, designed to resemble a water strider for mobility and strength. Kai’s was humanoid, except instead of hands it had massive flamethrowers fed with tanks on the mech’s back. The prickly teen had seemed pretty excited by this. (Lloyd missed him today, since he’d had to leave early again to get to work.) Zane’s was a heavy tank that would be near impossible to destroy. Cole’s was controlled with a turntable, given Cole’s love of music. It was as bulky as Kai’s but as mobile as Nya’s thanks to the single huge wheel it balanced on. It reminded Lloyd of Cole, a perfect mix of strong and graceful. Skylor’s was humanoid like Kai’s, but smaller and without flamethrowers. It would wield two massive swords. And of course, Jay and Lloyd had their mechs.  
  
With these, they would be able to take on whatever the Serpentine threw at them.  
  
After they finished, they all ended up in the corner booth at Chen’s, which had never been fuller. Everyone was there but Kai, which put the table at six. Lloyd, squished between Cole and Jay, had never felt happier.  
  
They stayed till evening before finally going their separate ways. Lloyd told the others goodbye and started walking home. It wasn’t far, about twenty minutes if he walked fast.  
  
Lloyd tugged up his hoodie and started making his way to the apartment, texting his mom to let him know he was on his way home.  
  
He was about halfway there when someone grabbed him by the back of his hoodie and tugged him into an alley.  
  
Fear shot through his belly, ugly and untamed. Oh, shoot, this was what he got for refusing Skylor’s offer of a ride, this wasn’t school which meant whoever it as could do whatever they wanted, why why _why-_  
  
His mind cut off it’s frantic train of thought as something sharp pressed against Lloyd’s throat, finding a spot right under his jaw and pressing hard enough for Lloyd to feel warmth trickle down his neck.  
  
Whoever it was tugged him farther into the alley, where it was a little bit darker, before spinning him around and pinning him to a hard concrete wall by jamming his arm against Lloyd’s throat.  
  
Lloyd couldn’t breath - he clawed at the arm cutting off his airflow, but the knife he’d felt on his throat pricking into his side next and he froze. This was bad, really bad, _so bad-_  
  
He finally recognized his assailant - _Chen?!_  
  
Well, if it was bad before, it was worse now. Chen had always had it out for Lloyd more than anybody Lloyd knew.  
  
“I _hate_ you,” Chen swore. “Good thing we aren’t in that stupid school with little freckly witnesses around anymore, though.”  
  
Lloyd felt fear spike in his stomach again. Whatever Chen was planning to do, it was gonna suck bigtime. If he didn’t have a knife digging into his side, he’d have gotten away in no time - but, Lloyd realized, Chen probably had brought the knife for that very reason. Lloyd had unknowingly tipped his hand when he saved Jay.  
  
He didn’t regret it, but Lloyd had a feeling he’d pay for it either way.  
  
So he just glared as Chen, and even though spots were dancing in his eyes thanks to the lack of air, he managed to gasp, “Coward,” Lloyd gasped, and he knew it was true, because even though Lloyd was always the one who bled, Chen was the coward, and Jay was right about Lloyd. No matter what, he wouldn’t let Chen get any satisfaction out of this.  
  
Chen sneered, and stabbed Lloyd in the side, digging the knife in and wrenching it out.  
  
Lloyd’s world flashed white and then black, as a pain worse than anything he’d ever known tore through his torso. He didn’t know if he made a sound - he could have been screaming, for all he knew. If he had the air too.  
  
Lloyd thought he heard someone shouting then, and he might have heard the smack of someone’s fist on Chen’s face, or the clatter of the knife falling to the ground, but all he could think about was how cold the ground was when he fell to it as Chen’s hand was ripped away.  
  
Struggling to stay coherent, he barely noticed someone picking him up until he felt the warmth of his side against their chest, and felt the pain of their hand pressing against the _hole_ in his side.  
  
“Lloyd! Hey, Lloyd!”  
  
What that… Kai?  
  
He sounded frantic, but Lloyd couldn’t remember how to think, or how to talk.  
  
“I’m calling Nya, hang on,” Kai said, sounding more and more panicky. “Lloyd, stay awake, you hear me? Don’t you dare close your eyes!”  
  
Lloyd tried to nod. He wasn’t sure if he did it or not. The neon lights looked really bright.  
  
“... on Nya, pick up, pick up…”  
  
Lloyd’s side hurt. It was wet. It was hot. His hoodie felt soggy.  
  
“It’s Lloyd, I heard him in an alley, Chen-” Lloyd heard a bad word “- _stabbed_ him, where does he live?!”  
  
Lloyd liked Kai - Kai’s chest felt solid against his head, and he was warm, unlike the ground, and Lloyd, which were cold.  
  
“I’m going, call ahead and let her know-”  
  
What? No! They couldn’t tell his mom! Lloyd didn’t want her to worry, he couldn’t cause _more_ trouble-  
  
“Stay awake Lloyd, come on, please,” Kai said, and Lloyd thought he was running from the way his arms bounced.  
  
His tongue felt thick and his brain felt foggy.  
  
“Lloyd, come on man, you’ve gotta stay awake,” Kai begged. “Think about Nya, she’ll be devastated if you die.”  
  
This snapped Lloyd back into it, more or less. Enough for him to cleverly make an observation and tell Kai about it.  
  
“I like your hair,” he managed after a few moments of remembering how to talk.  
  
Kai laughed hoarsely. “Yeah?” he said.  
  
“How d’you get it to stick up?” Lloyd asked thickly.  
  
“I can’t get it to stay _down,_ ” Kai said ruefully. “FSM knows I tried.”  
  
“‘S cool,” Lloyd said again, before giving in to exhaustion again.  
  
“Lloyd, hey, stay awake, remember? We’re almost to your apartment, and the ambulance is gonna be here any minute, so you gotta stay awake.”  
  
Lloyd registered these words and was working on processing them when his mom’s voice cut through the mental fog and he cringed because there he went _worrying_ her again when she already worried so much. He hated worrying his mom.  
  
“Lloyd,” she said, and he could hear tears in her voice, which was _super wrong,_ because no matter what, he’d never seen his mom, Lady IronDragon, cry - not ever.  
  
It was this realization that kept him awake until the ambulance arrived and shuttled them to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the plot thickens!  
> Lol so I know I introed two characters this time but I needed Jay and I couldn't wait any more for Kai, so!  
> Also the stabbing was my 'volcano moment' for Lloyd and Kai's bonding - basically Lloyd was in deep enough trouble for Kai to jump past his inhibitions about him.  
> I think this is my favorite chapter, between Kai and Lloyd saving Jay from Chen.  
> Reminder that I know nothing of public school so excuse any inconsistencies or errors :)  
> Thanks for reading and please remember to comment!


	6. Chapter 6

Lloyd woke up as his mom was checking him out of the hospital, feeling both more and less lucid. By now, he knew when painkillers did to your head, but he’d never had any this strong, he thought. But his brain was active enough to recall the events of… the previous night? What time was it?  
  
His side still hurt, a dull, throbbing ache that gripped his left side in a strong fist.  
  
Things came back as he fuzzily heard his mom talking with the doctors. He remembered Chen, he remembered being stabbed, he remembered Kai… he remembered telling Kai he liked his hair?  
  
Lloyd would have groaned but his throat hurt too much.  
  
“Hey, he’s up!” a familiar voice said, prompting his mom to cut off her conversation to come over to him.  
  
“Hi honey,” Koko said, looking tired. “How do you feel?”  
  
“Fuzzy,” Lloyd mumbled after a few moments of effort.  
  
“You got stitches, and the painkiller hasn’t worn off yet,” his mom said. “We’re about to head home.”  
  
“Okay,” he mumbled.  
  
Lloyd knew his mom was anxious to get back to the safety of their apartment, and the doctors were probably happy to get rid of him too, so it wasn’t long before he was headed to the car. Kai was carrying him again - apparently Kai and Nya had been at the hospital with Koko all night and the others were planning on checking on him sometime today.  
  
The drive home seemed to take forever, but Kai let Lloyd lean all over him in the backseat, so that was a plus. Kai still felt really warm and - Lloyd wouldn’t admit it to his face - cuddly.  
  
Kai also carried him from the car to their apartment, before putting him on the couch and flopping down next to him. Kai looked tired. So did Nya and his mom.  
  
“Sorry,” Lloyd mumbled, feeling miserable.  
  
“Geez,” Kai said before his mom could respond. “You get stabbed and the first thing you do is apologize about it?”  
  
“It’s ok,” Koko said, scrubbing a hand over her eye. “Do you want anything?”  
  
“Nope,” Lloyd mumbled.  
  
“Ok, I’m going to go call the school,” Koko said.  
  
Kai got a bright kind of look in his eye, and oh no, Nya had it too. That look meant trouble, Lloyd just knew it.  
  
“It’s fine,” he said, trying to stop them before they did something dumb. “Please don’t do something dumb over nothing.”  
  
“You got _stabbed,_ Lloyd,” Nya hissed. “That’s not _nothing._ ”  
  
Lloyd didn’t say anything.  
  
He leaned down, tugging the hem of his (clean, his mom must have grabbed him clothes) shirt up to inspect the injury.  
  
His lower torso was covered in bandages, stark white against his tan skin. On his left side, wads of padding were pinned by the bandages; Lloyd assumed that under that was the stitches Koko mentioned. He shivered at the sight of it - seeing the bandages was different from the abstract knowledge that he’d been stabbed.  
  
He’d have to guess his throat was still bruised, since it ached every time he inhaled.  
  
Lloyd bit down on his lip, trying to stuff the feeling somewhere he wouldn’t have to mess with it.  
  
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Kai said, scooting over and forcing Lloyd to lay down so his head was in Kai’s lap. Kai started messing with Lloyd’s hair, which he had to admit felt awesome.  
  
“You’re off school for the next two weeks,” his mom reported, reappearing in the room.  
  
“And Chen?” Nya asked, barely concealed fury in her calm tone.  
  
“It didn’t happen at the school,” Koko sighed. “They won’t do anything.”  
  
“The police?” Kai asked.  
  
“Don’t care,” Koko said again, sounding even more tired. “It’s our word against Chen’s and frankly nobody up there cares about us.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Lloyd tried again. “You should go to bed, mom,” he said, knowing she probably hadn’t slept since the night before. Now that the adrenaline of the moment had worn off, she’d need rest.  
  
“Okay,” she sighed, sounding defeated, and the fact that she agreed without so much as an argument actually worried Lloyd a lot. “I got the day off work but that’s it,” she added, sounding miserable.  
  
“I can, uh, stay during the school hours and watch him,” Kai offered, sounding a little awkward.  
  
“You can’t skip school,” Koko said absentmindedly.  
  
“Actually…” Kai winced, the hand in Lloyd’s hair stilling. “I flunked tenth grade. So I don’t even need to bother going back, I can’t make it up.”  
  
Nya looked at him. “Again?” she said.  
  
“Yeah,” Kai sighed, and suddenly it felt like Lloyd was intruding on a family discussion. “I- don’t worry, I’ve only got to do this for another year and then we don’t have to worry about it,” Kai said.  
  
Nya pressed her lips into a thin line but didn’t say anything.  
  
Koko glanced between the two of them and said nothing for a moment. But it was clear she was desperate for a solution, and Lloyd knew that even if they could find someone willing to take care of him, they couldn’t afford it.  
  
“It’s really no problem,” Kai said. “I don’t mind, Lloyd’s cool.”  
  
Lloyd’s heart expanded at those words.  
  
“Thank you,” Koko finally accepted. “I can’t tell you how much it means-”  
  
“No, I get it,” Kai said softly. “I really do.”  
  
Lloyd got a feeling Kai _did,_ in fact, understand his mom’s sentiment.  
  
“The rest of us can take care of him after school while Kai works,” Nya offered. “You don’t have to worry, Mrs. Koko.”  
  
“Please get some rest, mom,” Lloyd pleaded.  
  
“Ok,” Koko said, saying goodbye and disappearing into her room, closing the door behind her.  
  
“What happened?” Nya whirled on Kai as soon as Koko closed the door. “You said you’d save time for school, Kai. You promised.”  
  
“I know, I know I did,” he said. “But I’m not like you, this stuff is just - really hard for me, and it kept getting worse and worse and yesterday I got an email warning that my grades are irredeemable.” He blew out a frustrated breath, leaning back against the couch. “I can’t wait to be eighteen,” he mumbled.  
  
“Kai,” Nya said again. “We agreed-”  
  
“Nya, I don’t _care,_ ” he snapped, voice shifting from tired to upset. “Would you please stop mothering me?!”  
  
Lloyd tried to not listen to what was obviously now a personal discussion.  
  
Whatever meaning was attached to this statement, it was enough to get Nya to stop pressing the matter.  
  
“Summer school?” she asked instead.  
  
“Yeah, but I’m not going,” he said.  
  
Nya looked like she was fighting back more arguments, but instead she turned and walked into the kitchen. “What do you guys want for breakfast?” she said. “Just know that I can’t cook anything.”  
  
“Neither can I,” Kai sighed dejectedly.  
  
“Luckily for you, I can,” Skylor announced, bursting through the door and making Lloyd jerk a little in surprise.  
  
“As long as you can do it quietly, Mrs. Koko’s sleeping,” Nya said, jerking her head in the direction of Koko’s door.  
  
“Yay,” Kai cheered quietly.  
  
  
  
Skylor and pretty much everyone else skipped school to come hang out in Lloyd’s apartment for the day, and they somehow managed to be quiet enough for Lloyd’s mom to sleep until midafternoon, when she awoke to witness the most intense Phase 10 game of all time, which resulted in Zane briefly short-circuiting and Lloyd shouting in pain after failing to do an instinctive victory dance when he wiped the floor with them.  
  
They ended up just crowding on the cough and the floor and watching old movies until everyone trickled home. Kai let Lloyd keep leaning on him throughout the day, and Lloyd grew to really like it. So much that when Kai and Nya finally left, long after everyone else, Lloyd missed the brunette’s uncommon warmth.  
  
His mom made him take some antibiotics and other weird stuff before kissing him on the forehead and going to bed, leaving only after she forced him to promise he’d get her if the injury flared up. He heard a lot of words like _infection_ and _stitches_ but his brain was wandering into the land of imagination and try as he did, Lloyd only retained the gist of her message.  
  
  
  
Kai was there pretty early that morning, and Koko lent him Lloyd’s apartment key just in case and gave him a list of pills and stuff Lloyd was supposed to take. She gave him her number and took his. Kai actually listened pretty attentively and seemed to grasp all her instructions well.  
  
However, when it came to actually passing time that had previously been occupied with school, it turned out Kai was terrible at that.  
  
Three hours after he arrived, he was pacing back and forth through the apartment, looking like he was jumpy or agitated or _something._ Lloyd had no idea what to make of it, except that it seemed like Kai had no idea how to occupy himself.  
  
Lloyd was bored too, to be honest. Jay and Zane had promised to make sure he had his assignments and stuff (thanks, guys) and it wasn’t like Lloyd could get up and pace like Kai.  
  
Uncle Wu dropped by, giving Lloyd a heart attack because Uncle Wu almost never came by the apartment. And he wanted to make Lloyd tea?  
  
So that was kinda weird, but by now Lloyd just accepted the weird things about his family.  
  
Uncle Wu spent a long time looking Kai over thoughtfully; long enough for Kai to start looking kind of mad. Lloyd understood that, Uncle Wu had been studying his features for like five minutes now.  
  
“Is something wrong?” Kai finally snapped, folding his arms.  
  
“You look just like your father,” Wu said, before turning and walking out the door. “Goodbye, Nephew!” he shouted, closing the door behind him.  
  
Kai stood frozen for a solid six seconds, blinking in shock, before darting to the door and disappearing through it.  
  
So… that topped _weirdness_ even for Lloyd’s family.  
  
Kai was gone for ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour… he finally reappeared, looking worse than ever. “Your uncle’s like a ghost,” he groaned, flopping on the couch next to Lloyd. It was like all that nervous energy had drained out of him. “I couldn’t find him anywhere.”  
  
“Uncle Wu says weird stuff sometimes,” Lloyd tried.  
  
“D’you know if he’s ever been to a place called Ignacia?” Kai asked.  
  
“He’s never told me if he has,” Lloyd said, confused. “Isn’t that some rural mountain village?”  
  
“Yeah,” Kai said softly. “It’s where Nya and I grew up.”  
  
That explained the faint accent, then.  
  
“Hey, you wanna play a game?” Kai asked, and it was obvious that he was changing the subject, but Lloyd didn’t mind.  
  
  
  
So Kai and Nya obviously had something weird going on with them, but Lloyd of all people was the first to have experience with that, and whatever it was he wasn’t gonna pry. So he put it out of his mind and instead enjoyed hanging out with Kai, who was actually really cool and a total sweetheart just like Nya said. (Boy did he scowl whenever somebody brought it up though.)  
  
School got out and Kai bestowed a parting hair ruffle on Lloyd before handing him off to Cole and Skylor, whose turn it was to ‘babysit the trouble magnet’ in their words.  
  
They totally babied him by helping him with his homework, which Lloyd was fine with since he really did not want to do school right now. Then they helped him switch the padding, which was totally gross and sticky and _extremely painful also,_ but Cole surprised Lloyd yet again with his gentle touch while Skylor loudly made something or other in the kitchen. It turned out to be cookies, which were super awesome, and Lloyd just ended up eating like seven cookies for dinner. (Skylor was cool with this and Cole was obviously trying to be responsible and failing, because he just gave up eventually and stole one of Skylor’s cookies.)  
  
Skylor and Cole also tried to explain their progress on the mechs to Lloyd, but he realized too late that he’d asked the two kids who weren’t in the ‘brains the size of ninjago’ club so he mostly got a jumble of ums __and _thingys_ and _somethings_.  
  
So instead he texted the group chat, but that didn’t work either since Nya replied:  
  
_**Nya:** its a surprise_  
  
_**Nya:** NOBODY TELL HIM OR IM COMING FOR YOU_  
  
_**BluJay:** are u feeling ok Lloyd?_  
  
_**Lloyd:** fine_  
  
_**Ambrr:** hes been sitting on the couch groaning for the last half hour_  
  
_**Lloyd:** HAVE NOT_  
  
_**Coal:** trust us_  
  
_**BluJay:** do you wanna read comics together tomorrow?_  
  
_**Lloyd:** YESSSS pls_  
  
_**Kai:** nerds_  
  
_**Nya:** he loves us ignore him_  
  
  
  
Nya wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets and with a little help from Kai, Lloyd found something to occupy himself as well. Kai, however, seemed to have no idea what to do with himself, so he switched between pacing and sitting next to Lloyd asking questions.  
  
When Lloyd questioned what he was doing, Kai admitted, “I have literally no idea what to do right now. Like, without school or work or something. It’s weird,” he mumbled, voice trailing off.  
  
“You don’t have any favorite games or movies?” Lloyd asked, reaching for the scissors and failing. Kai handed them to him.  
  
“Nope,” he said. “Too busy for ‘em.”  
  
Lloyd chose yet again to ignore another statement.  
  
“Hobbies?” he asked.  
  
“Nothing as girly as you,” Kai kidded him.  
  
Lloyd scoffed. “It’s not girly! If the apocalypse happens you guys will all be coming to me for clothes, admit it.”  
  
“Pfft, I can do that too,” Kai rolled his eyes. “I just don’t do it for fun.”  
  
“You can _sew?_ ” Lloyd asked, incredulous. Kai, mister cool-incarnate, scary-scar-and-spiky-hair sewed?  
  
“Yes, I _can,_ ” Kai said, sticking his tongue out. “You’re probably better at it though,” he admitted. “I taught myself when I was younger.”  
  
“My mom taught me,” Lloyd said. “Back when we had more time together. She, um, had to start working more because I got, more, um. Hospital expenses and stuff.”  
  
Kai narrowed his eyes at that and Lloyd reminded himself to work on figuring out how to make his mouth turn off.  
  
“So, sewing, and what else?” Kai asked after a minute.  
  
“Um, I like comic books and adventure novels?” Lloyd asked. “You can borrow some if you want, I’ve got a couple good ones.”  
  
“Ummmmmmmmm,” Kai said, leaning his head back against the couch. “What’re they about?”  
  
Lloyd almost snorted. Kai must be truly struggling to occupy himself.  
  
“I have one about guys trapped in a maze,” he said. “I have one about kids descended from gods. I’ve got lots of books with dragons. A trilogy about kids fighting to the death in an arena.”  
  
“That last one is weird,” Kai snorted. He paused. “Where can I find the maze one?”  
  
Lloyd directed him to his bookshelf, which was packed with books, both for school and fun. And his Uncle Wu’s-  
  
“Ninjanuity?” Kai asked, picking it up curiously and flipping through a few pages. “What the heck?”  
  
“My, um, Uncle Wu wrote it,” Lloyd said. “He had me read it as part of martial arts training and Spinjitzu and stuff.”  
  
“Geez, I keep forgetting you’re like a ninja or something,” Kai said smoothly, returning the book. Lloyd grimaced under the words Kai left unsaid - _you’re like a ninja or something, but you keep letting people hurt you._  
  
  
  
Seven days after Lloyd was carried into the hospital (he’d resigned himself to his fate of being carried everywhere) Lloyd removed the bandages to find a ridged scar and nothing else. Stretching carefully, he was able to move just like normal with barely a twinge of pain.  
  
“Hey, Kai?” he called, walking into the kitchen and giving Kai a heart attack because until then Kai (and everyone else) had practically glued Lloyd to the couch.  
  
“Dude, go ba-” Kai froze, staring at the mostly-smooth expanse of skin Lloyd revealed on his torso when he tugged his shirt up. Lloyd grinned.  
  
“What- you’re better?” Kai asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Lloyd said. “Watch this.” He stepped back and executed a front flip to prove his point.  
  
When Kai was done having a second heart attack, he lectured Lloyd within an inch of his life and made him sit back on the couch and call his mom.  
  
“Hey mom,” Lloyd said, drumming his foot on the rug. No wonder he’d been feeling better.  
  
“Lloyd- is something wrong? Did-”  
  
“No!” Lloyd said frantically. “No, I have good news. I’m all healed.”  
  
“I- what?” Koko asked.  
  
“Yeah, I can move like normal and everything,” Lloyd said.  
  
Koko was silent for a moment.  
  
“Did your uncle come visit you at all?” she said finally.  
  
“Um, yeah,” Lloyd said, confused. What did this have to do with-  
  
“Did he give you tea?” Koko pressed.  
  
“Yeah, actually,” Lloyd said.  
  
Koko snorted a laugh. “No wonder you’re healed. He gave you special tea.”  
  
“Ohhh,” Lloyd said, still confused but happy to accept a clean bill of health. “Cool. So I don’t have to stay on the couch anymore?”  
  
Koko sighed almost imperceptibly. “Just please don't overdo it,” she said. “No martial arts for another few days, okay?”  
  
“Ok Mom,” Lloyd said, grinning. “Love you.”  
  
“Bye,” Koko said.  
  
“Bye.” Lloyd hung up and grinned at Kai.  
  
Kai broke into a grin of his own, fist-bumping Lloyd.  
  
“Please can we surprise the others,” Lloyd pleaded. Everyone was working on the mechs today at some secret location Lloyd wasn’t allowed to know about.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Kai said. He grinned. “It’ll be worth Nya’s wrath.”  
  
They walked to a warehouse that looked abandoned. It was in one of the seaside districts nobody went to anymore, so Lloyd supposed that was why nobody noticed the loud noises coming from it.  
  
Kai must have texted ahead that he was coming (ugh, why, man) because Nya was waiting outside the door.  
  
Kai turned the corner first and Lloyd heard Nya say, “Hey, what’s that surprise you sa- LLOYD!”  
  
Lloyd laughed as Nya launched herself over to him, immediately freaking out just like Kai and Koko had. The noises from within cut off as the other realized something was going one and they ended up rocketing into Lloyd as well, crushing him in the best hug he’d ever gotten.  
  
“Uncle Wu slipped magic healing something-or-other into some tea and gave it to me without telling me,” he laughed, a little out of breath between the hugging.  
“That’s so awesome!” Jay cheered. “You feel better?”  
  
“Totally,” Lloyd grinned. “Soooo can I see the mechs?”  
  
“It was gonna be a surprise,” Nya said sheepishly. “But since you’re better early, you can see it now! It’s mostly done.”  
  
“Which one?” Lloyd asked.  
  
“No spoilers,” Nya grinned, covering his eyes with her hands and pushing him through the door. He almost tripped on the two-inch rise of the concrete floor but managed to catch himself.  
  
“Alright,” Nya said, removing her hands.  
  
Lloyd gasped.  
  
Gleaming silver metal, wicked sharp spiked, thin supports and hydraulics and metal framework that meshed together beautifully.  
  
Jay’s eyes gleamed excitedly next to Lloyd as the blond teen gaped.  
  
“I- you- how-” Lloyd couldn’t decide what he wanted to ask first.  
  
Kai whistled beside him. “I hadn’t seen it yet,” he said, “but that’s a killer machine.”  
  
“It’s SO COOL,” Lloyd exploded, darting over to inspect every inch of it.  
  
“We haven’t got it done yet,” Jay explained while Lloyd lost his mind. “And it’s obviously not painted yet either. But it’s going to look awesome once we finish.”  
  
Everyone crowded around to explain how they’d pulled it off - turned out the warehouse used to be a workshop for a metalworking company so they’d been able to salvage some of the machines to use. And Skylor had come through spectacularly with money - “I got Zane to hack into the business bank accounts,” she said smugly, hands in her pockets. “Since I’m not eighteen yet I don’t have access to huge sums of money, but I thought it was right that dad’s business paid for something like this.”  
  
Lloyd hugged her again in excitement - he couldn’t help it! The mech was looking even better than he could have imagined.  
  
  
  
The downside to being all healed up meant… Lloyd had to go back to school. Which meant he’d have to face Chen.  
  
Just the thought of seeing Chen’s face again was enough to make Lloyd panic, even if he refused to admit it. Who was to say Chen wouldn’t just do something similar again? Lloyd couldn’t be on his guard _all_ the time and it was obvious that Chen hated him more than Lloyd had previously known.  
  
Monday morning rolled around and he was feeling kind of sick to his stomach, but he stubbornly refused to acknowledge the feeling.  
  
But when he got to school, he saw Kai leaning against the wall near the front doors, obviously waiting for him.  
  
“Sup, Lloyd,” he called, jogging over, ignoring the jeers and nasty looks from the students giving both of them a wide berth. Lloyd heard the hissed insults, the accusations of _monster_ and _evil_ , but he also heard words like _delinquent_ and _dumb_. Lloyd blew out an aggressive breath and focused on Kai, who seemed to be ignoring the people around them.  
  
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Lloyd said.  
  
“I wasn’t gonna,” Kai said. “It’s not like I can save myself now,” he joked. “Anyways, I’m here as a little added reminder to what me, Nya, Skylor, and Cole all told Chen. On different occasions,” he grinned, looking positively shark-like.  
  
Lloyd’s eyes widened. “What did you guys do?!” he asked. “I told you to leave it alone!”  
  
If possible, Kai grinned wider. “You don’t know what we did,” he said cheerily. “Innocent until proven guilty. And beside, you gonna turn down a hall buddy?”  
  
Lloyd sighed. “No,” he admitted. He refused to admit how relieved he was, but he thought Kai understood. “Thanks,” he mumbled.  
  
“No problem,” Kai grinned, punching his shoulder affectionately.  
  
Only two more weeks of school until summer anyways.  
  
  
  
Two months later, they hadn’t heard a whisper of snakes in the city.  
  
When they weren’t working on the mechs, Jay and Zane were running searches on the internet for any rumors. Kai kept a lookout at work, both for the scaly visitors and any packages from Wu’s warehouse. Skylor, Nya, and Cole joined Lloyd searching the whole city, for any sign of the fangblades, Serpentine, or tunnels.  
  
Nothing turned up.  
  
But despite the depressing lack of information, the mechs were coming along spectacularly. Lloyd’s dragon was done, as was Jay’s jet, Kai’s mech, Zane’s tank, Nya’s water skimmer, and Skylor’s mech. They were finishing up Cole’s - it would be done by evening.  
  
Lloyd was in love with his mech. Long and lithe, painted in a mix of gold and green, it was beautiful and durable and _so perfect, Lloyd was gonna-_  
  
All the mechs were decked out with weapons and missiles and fun explosive things, but only two had fire - Kai’s and Lloyd’s; his dragon spewed green fire to complete the look.  
  
“It can’t be too much longer until the Serpentine have everything they need,” Lloyd said the morning after they completed the final touches on Cole’s mech. “We gotta find somewhere to test the mechs.”  
  
“I know the perfect place!” Jay exclaimed after a few moments of thought. “My parents’ junkyard! It’s super huge, so there’s plenty of space to keep them. Plus my parents barely go out there anymore, they’re trying to sell it, which would suck, but there’s tons of empty space out there to practice without anyone seeing!”  
  
“How could we move them though?” Cole asked.  
  
Skylor shrugged. “We’re hiding in an abandoned building, in a ruined district of the city. All we gotta do is wait until night and ride ‘em out.”  
  
“Perfect,” Lloyd said. “Now all we have to do is locate the lost city of Ouroboros. I might be able to get something from Uncle Wu - he was alive when the Serpentine still lived there.”  
  
“How could you find out without giving us away though?” Kai asked. (Now that it was summer, he and Nya were working more but their schedules were more flexible.  
  
“I’ll… figure something out,” Lloyd said. He had to admit, he’d been seeing his uncle less lately. (His Spinjitzu training was suffering.) Between the mechs and training the others with Skylor, even though school was out now he’d been pretty busy. Hopefully soon it wouldn’t matter. They’d find Ouroboros, find the Serpentine, and stop them.  
  
“I should do that now if we’re moving out tonight,” Lloyd said.  
  
“Alibis?” Jay asked. “For parents.”  
  
“Everyone tell them you’re staying at Jay’s for the night,” Kai suggested.  
  
“Um,” Jay said pointedly.  
  
“Jay, tell them you’re staying with one of us,” Kai said, as if it were obvious.  
  
“Right, got it,” Jay said.  
  
“Meet here at four,” Skylor said, standing up. “See you guys then.”  
  
  
  
“Uncle Wu?” Lloyd called as he boarded the Bounty.  
  
“Yes, Nephew?” Uncle Wu asked, appearing _right next_ to Lloyd and giving him a _heart attack._  
  
“AUGH!” Lloyd screeched, jumping away. “You said you wouldn’t do that anymore!”  
  
“Apologies,” Wu chuckled, in a way that made Lloyd think he wasn’t sorry at all. “What brings you here?” Wu asked.  
  
“I- you- um, you remember the, uh, the museum thing from a couple months ago?” Lloyd asked.  
  
“Yes,” Wu said evenly.  
  
“Did you ever find the Serpentine?” Lloyd asked.  
  
“I found all their tombs,” Wu said. “When we fought them centuries ago, we sealed them underground to keep them from harming humankind anymore.”  
  
Lloyd swallowed - Wu didn’t know he already knew this.  
  
“Legend has it we sealed away the entirety of the Serpentine,” Wu said, “but this is false.”  
  
Huh. _This_ was news to Lloyd.  
  
“The majority of them - those who no longer wished to fight the humans - moved under the mountains. They left their ancestral city, Ouroboros, to keep the peace. However,” Wu said, frowning, “there were still some of the soldiers and the five Serpentine generals to deal with. We locked them away in five separate tombs. Three of these I found opened somehow. I found signs of at least a dozen Serpentine, but given the tombs I found compromised there can’t be more than twoscore. And since the Serpentine who escaped don’t know where to find the mountain-dwellers or the other tombs, I suppose it is safe to assume I won’t have more to deal with then I already do.”  
  
“But did you ever find them, or what they were looking for?” Lloyd asked.  
  
Wu looked him in the eyes. “I found no Serpentine,” he said, deliberately ignoring the second question.  
  
Lloyd swallowed nervously.  
  
“Where was Ouroboros?” he said after a moment, trying to sound simply curious.  
  
“Somewhere in the Sea of Sands,” Wu said, sounding inexplicably sad. “However, I don’t recall where.”  
  
  
  
“He doesn’t know what it is,” Lloyd sighed. “All Uncle Wu remembers is that it’s in the desert.”  
  
“I mean, fair,” Kai said. “If I was hundreds of years old I’d forget some stuff too.”  
  
“I hope it’s not near my parent’s place,” Jay fretted.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Lloyd said. “This might end up working out for us. We were already headed to the desert to practice. This just makes it easier.”  
  
“We have a few hours before the sun sets sufficiently to allow for discreet travel,” Zane informed them.  
  
“Let’s double check everything to be sure,” Nya said.  
  
With that goal in mind, it was dark before they knew it. Before long, they were rolling (or flying) out of the warehouse under the cover of darkness.  
  
  
  
The desert was beautiful at night.  
  
Lloyd had been outside the city once before, and it was during the day. He’d never seen the stars, not really - not like this.  
  
Without the neon lights and the cars and the buildings, there were hundreds, thousands of stars, glittering like tiny eyes in the sky. Lloyd felt the stars watching him, and their gaze felt kind.  
  
“These mechs are handling great,” Cole’s voice came over the comm units, along with the faintest blare of music.  
  
“Yeah,” Kai said, sounding pretty excited.  
  
“They’re pretty awesome,” Skylor said.  
  
Lloyd’s mech hummed under his hands as he learned the nuances of it’s controls.  
  
“We’re still headed in the right direction, right?” He checked with Jay.  
  
“Yup,” Jay affirmed cheerfully.  
  
An hour or so later, Lloyd saw the scrapyard come into view. A mismatched sign was dark at the entrance, but it was the only thing for miles, so Lloyd assumed it was the right place.  
  
“Man, who builds a business out here?” Kai said once they were all gathered.  
  
“I have no idea why we’re so far out,” Jay admitted. “But we never did bad for business, so something about it worked.”  
  
“Come on, guys,” Lloyd said over the radio. “We can get in plenty of practice before getting home tomorrow.”  
  
They moved a generous amount of distance away from the scrapyard (at Jay’s request) to begin testing the limits of what they’d designed.  
  
Lloyd loved the green dragon mech more and more with each precise aerial maneuver and smooth acceleration. It was dangerous, it was big, it was heavy and metal and terrifying, but it was also fluid and beautiful and incredible to pilot.  
  
He had a few close calls as Lloyd figured out how best to guide his mech, but since he’d had a hand in planning the design, he didn’t struggle much.  
  
When he found the will to glance at the others, who were kind of far away, (they’d spread out so nobody would bump into each other,) it looked like they were having just as much fun as he was.  
  
“Everyone have the controls down?” Lloyd asked, hours after they’d originally split up.  
  
Kai used his mech’s flamethrowers to spell _YES_ in the air as if they were just giant sparklers.  
  
Lloyd giggled at the sight. “Let’s work on fighting together, then,” he said. “We need to be able to attack without hurting each other.”  
  
  
  
It was totally an accident, but by the time they realized how long they’d been training, the desert sky was colored with streaks of pink and orange as the sun made its first appearance.  
  
“Aw, shoot,” Jay said. “We gotta hurry or we’ll miss the bus, and it only goes by here once a day.”  
  
This knowledge was enough to spur them along, since they intended to leave the mechs in the desert. They’d come back to train again in the future, but until then, they protected the mechs with several of the tarps Jay’s parents owned, effectively shielding them from the hot sun and any prying eyes. (Of course, the chances of the latter were pretty slim, but better safe than sorry.)  
  
All the while, the seven of them enthused about how well the mech’s had performed, how awesome they were, how much fun it’d been. Lloyd couldn’t help but grin - no wonder Garmadon liked using mechs so much. These things were completely awesome!  
  
They had a few lists compiled, of things they could improve or tweak on the mechs to make then run smoother. They’d be coming back as soon as they could without raising suspicion to work out those kinks. That finished, they ended up rushing to the bus, barely catching it, and eating a ton of granola bars for breakfast. (Cole had picked up two giant boxes of them from the store before they left.)  
  
It was a three-hour ride, so they ended up falling asleep all over each other in a pile of teenagers in the back of the bus.  
  
  
  
“After what Lloyd shared about his Uncle’s failure to remember the location of Ouroboros, I took the liberty of engaging in another act of teenage rebellion,” Zane informed them. “I hacked into the Ninjago City Museum of History’s database.”  
  
They were once again stuffed into the corner booth of Chen’s Noodle House. (It appeared Skylor had managed to keep the massive amount of money she’d borrowed from the business hidden. Lloyd had no idea how or how long she’d be able to keep it up.)  
  
“I have found two pieces of knowledge I think you will find interesting,” Zane continued.  
  
“First, the museum had a photographical copy of the map, as they do many delicate artifacts. Once inside their system, I was able to use the photo and my GPS unit to establish a reasonable guess for the location of whatever remains of Ouroboros.”  
  
“Yes!” Lloyd cheered, unable to help himself. “That’s so awesome, Zane!”  
  
The table erupted in a flurry of voices as everyone congratulated Zane for his good idea and findings.  
  
“I found something else, as well,” Zane said gravely. “A poem, written in a script few can read. Again, thanks to the database, I had access to a translation. I won’t recite the verses, for they are long, but the gist of the poem is that as an added failsafe, the fangblades can only be used to unleash the Great Devourer during a full moon. This way, those tasked with guarding Ninjago would have a better chance of determining when the Serpentine would strike.”  
  
A new mood settled over the table - one of grimness.  
  
“The next full moon will be tonight,” Zane said, concluding his report.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually really struggled with this when I was writing it? I had to rewrite a few large pieces actually but I don't dislike how it turned out.  
> ~Disclaimer again~ I know nothing of medical procedures, mechanical stuff, anxiety, or public school! Errors are a result of me being too lazy to research! :'D If anything causes offence it was an accident and I'm sorry.  
> Hope you guys like it! Finally got to have Kai around, it was about time lol.  
> Thanks for reading and remember to drop a comment, it makes my day! :)


	7. Chapter 7

The bus from Ninjago to the Sea of Sands left at noon - it arrived from the Sands, refueled, and turned right back around for the return trip. Everyone had about an hour to tell their parents where they were going and meet at the bus stop.  
  
Lloyd hated that he couldn’t tell his mom yet, but if he told her now, she’d try to stop him, and he was too far in to stop now. It had been literally months since that fateful moment when Uncle Wu asked Lloyd to help with the tapes. This was the time to prove he was a hero and not a villain.  
  
He made sure to grab the things he’d made for his friends - now was the time to give them.  
  
  
  
To say the three hour bus ride was tense would be an understatement.  
  
They went over the plan in hushed tones as the bus bumped along at what felt like an impossibly slow speed.  
  
Lloyd knew they should probably try to catch some sleep, due to the inevitable long night awaiting them, but he knew nobody would be able to manage it.  
  
Instead, they went over everything Zane could find on the Great Devourer and tried to formulate a game plan.  
  
When the bus _finally_ arrived at the scrapyard, they practically sprinted to make sure their mechs were still in working order.  
  
Lloyd knew that even if his uncle remembered or knew about the full moon information in the first place, he wouldn’t be able to defeat the Great Devourer on his own. By all accounts, the snake was massive and unstoppable. He only hoped his team could prevail.  
  
They still had the lists from the night a few days before, so they rushed to make the changes that were most important. It was a good thing they’d picked Jay’s junkyard to be their home base - it had the tools they needed, and the coincidental added bonus of being located only about sixty miles from Ouroboros.  
  
Evening slowly fell, a veil of darkness made lighter by the ominous glow of the full, blindingly white moon.  
  
Cole had grabbed sandwich stuff before they left, which was good, because everyone was pretty hungry. Lloyd and Jay managed to lighten the mood a little by starting a debate about how to properly make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but once they finished eating, everyone knew it was the moment of truth - this was when they’d prove themselves, each for their own reasons.  
  
“Before we go,” Lloyd said, voice steady. “I’ve got something for each of you. I made ‘em while I was… um, laid up.”  
  
He handed each of his friends a package wrapped in paper, biting his lip in anticipation. Man, he sure hoped they liked them.  
  
Skylor finished unwrapping hers first.  
  
It was light orange, her favorite shade, and one she looked surprisingly good in despite her vibrant red hair. He’d given it pale yellow trim along the edges, hemming it all with careful, small stitches.  
  
Kai had already seen his since he’d helped Lloyd get supplies and he’d even done some of the stitching. (He was better than he claimed.) His was red.  
  
Nya’s was gray with cyan trim.  
  
Jay’s was deep blue.  
  
Cole’s was black, and sleeveless, because Lloyd knew he liked sleeveless clothes.  
  
Zane’s was pristine white.  
  
They were gi, like the one he wore when training with Uncle Wu.  
  
“We’re a team,” he said, tugging his hoodie off and revealing a vibrant green gi of his own. “We look like it now. And we can do this.”  
  
  
  
The mechs rumbled loudly as all seven powered up. Leaving the scrapyard, they followed Zane, trailing a cloud of sand.  
  
“This may make it difficult to approach undetected,” Zane pointed out, five minutes into the trip.  
  
“That’s alright,” Lloyd said. “There’s not really any way to approach secretly. There’s no cover.”  
  
“Affirmative,” Zane responded.  
  
“Hey, Lloyd,” Jay’s voice came in scratchily a few minutes later.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“You did all this stitching yourself?” Jay asked, sounding impressed.  
  
“Kai helped some,” Lloyd said. “But yeah.”  
  
“AWWWWWW,” Nya teased, right as Jay was telling Lloyd how cool his stitching was.  
  
“I KIND OF helped,” Kai protested. “I like, cut the thread and stuff.”  
  
“Nuh uh,” Lloyd teased. “Tell Skylor who did the lettering on her gi.”  
  
“NO,” Kai shouted as Skylor barked a laugh.  
  
“You guys really think we can beat it?” Jay asked again after a few moments of silence.  
  
“I know we can,” Cole said confidently, before Lloyd could respond similarly. “We have awesome mechs, and we’re a team.”  
  
“Yeah,” Kai chimed in. “We’re not gonna let a dumb snake mess with Ninjago City.”  
  
“It’s been centuries since the Great Devourer was last free,” Nya said simply. “We have _missiles._ ”  
  
“168 missiles between the seven of us, to be precise,” Zane said.  
  
“The Great Devourer won’t know what hit it,” Lloyd reassured them.  
  
  
  
They arrived at the coordinates Zane had found, and saw… nothing.  
  
Nothing but a smooth expanse of sand in all directions.  
  
“We should see ruins of Ouroboros or something,” Skylor said.  
  
“Well, not necessarily,” Zane pointed out. “Scientists, archaeologists, and historians have been searching for the lost city for decades. If there was an obvious record of it it wouldn’t be lost.”  
  
_Lost… lost._  
  
“How would the Serpentine use the fangblades to release it then? If the city is completely gone, obliterated, whatever, how do they know where it is?” Kai mused.  
  
“They used to live there,” Nya reminded everyone.  
  
_When they lost, the Serpentine moved under the mountain range._  
  
“Yeah, but it’s been centuries, Nya.” Kai continued.  
  
_They moved_ under _the mountain range._  
  
“Perhaps the map was incorrect,” Zane fretted. “I could run it through my system again to see if another solution occurs.”  
  
_They were all locked in Tombs. The Devourer is locked in a tomb._  
  
“But if we leave and we’re wrong, what then?” Skylor asked.  
  
“We can’t split up,” Jay said.  
  
_Under._  
  
_Lost._  
  
“The city of Ouroboros is underground!” Lloyd shouted.  
  
As if his realization had triggered something, the sand beneath his mech erupted as a monstrous scaly head emerged.  
  
  
  
The Great Devourer was _massive._  
  
Green scales glittered in the moonlight, but not the shade of green Lloyd liked - this was a yellowy, swampish green that sickened him. It was covered with thick scales that jutted out sharply, reminding Lloyd of desert vipers. The scales on its back were darker, a brackish, dead color. Around it’s head were the sharp, spiney frills, flaring as it exploded up in a cloud of sand through up by the movement. It’s eyes were the worst, though - they glowed red, like no natural snake’s ever should.  
  
And when it opened its mouth, it had long, wickedly sharp fangs that were probably longer than Lloyd.  
  
Lloyd pulled up frantically, barely avoiding the snapping, _very large_ jaws. He caught sight of the others hurrying to get out of the way as well.  
  
By the time he pulled the green dragon around to face the Devourer again, it was slithering out of the massive sinkhole created by what Lloyd assumed was the opening of a gigantic underground chamber.  
  
He prepared himself for the attack, hands hovering over the controls, but the Great Devourer didn’t head for Lloyd or Jay or even any of his friends on the ground. It just turned away from them, moving surprisingly fast in the direction of… _Ninjago City._  
  
“The legends say that it grows bigger the more it eats,” Lloyd shouted into his mic. “It’s heading for Ninjago City! If we don’t catch it in time, it’ll be even harder to defeat!”  
  
He slammed his controls into place, thrusting the green dragon mech after the Devourer. “We have to find some way to stop it before it reaches the city!” Lloyd stressed.  
  
The others began chasing the Great Devourer as well, but for a snake as terrifyingly humongous as this one was, it moved _fast._ It threw up clouds of billowing sand in its wake, causing Lloyd to pull on his mask and hood in an attempt to breathe easier. (He warned the others to do the same, but he thought they’d gotten the idea already.)  
  
“It’s too fast!” Nya cried over the radio. “We won’t catch it in time!”  
  
“Yeah, we will,” Lloyd said, narrowing his eyes. “Let’s test out those missiles, guys.”  
  
Lloyd got a little higher, but he was unable to go any faster. He hoped the height advantage would help his shots go farther.  
  
However, as he and the others found out, it didn’t matter whether they hit the Devourer or not, because it didn’t seem to notice, even when their missiles exploded directly on its scales.  
  
“No way!” Jay cried in exasperation as his fifth perfectly-aimed missile failed to do so much as draw the Devourer’s attention.  
  
It was heading straight for Ninjago City. There was no shortcut they could take, no trick they could employ to beat it. In fact, Lloyd thought the snake might have been gaining on them.  
  
Lloyd’s mind raced as he tried to formulate a plan. Finally, something came to mind.  
  
Lloyd managed to dig his phone out of his pocket without crashing his mech, by some miracle. He found the contact and frantically pressed call, swerving and over correcting before leveling out.  
  
“Lloyd, you okay?” Kai asked.  
  
“M’good,” he managed, hands back on the controls and phone squashed between his shoulder and ear. “Trying to figure something out.”  
  
“Come on, pick up,” Lloyd mumbled to himself as he worked to stay in the air.  
  
“Hello?” his uncle’s voice came over the phone, almost drowned out by the roar of the mech’s engine and the thunder of the Great Devourer. “What’s going on?” Wu asked - he could probably hear some of the racket.  
  
“I need you to get everyone out of the side of Ninjago bordering the Sea of Sand,” Lloyd said in a rushed voice. “Long story short, the Serpentine unleashed the Great Devourer and we- um- it’s heading right for Ninjago City.”  
  
Wu was shocked into silence for what seemed like an eternity. “Sorry?” he asked eventually.  
  
“ _The Great Devourer is heading for the city from the desert, you have to get everyone out of that area so nobody gets hurt!_ ” Lloyd shouted into the phone. “Promise!”  
  
“I- It’ll be done,” Wu said.  
  
“Gottagobye,” Lloyd said, putting his phone down without caring where it landed. “Ok guys, new plan,” he said into the mic. “We aren’t gonna catch the snake, it’s almost going faster than us. Uncle Wu’s evacuating the edge of the city. When the Devourer reaches the edge of Ninajago, it’ll slow down to start eating. That’s our only window of time to act - we have to catch it while it’s slowed down but before it starts growing bigger.”  
  
“Copy that,” Skylor said; the others affirmed their receival of the message as well.  
  
“Until then, we just have to keep up with it and keep trying to slow it down,” Lloyd said. “Look for a weak spot. This thing got defeated once. Skylor, anything you know about snakes that could help?”  
  
“If there’s a weak spot, it’s going to be in the most protected area,” Skylor said. Her voice crackled over the radio, staticky. “Wherever it has the most protection.”  
  
“The head,” Cole said.  
  
“Yeah, it’s got all those spikes,” Jay said, sounding nervous.  
  
“Statistically, this would be the most likely spot for any potential weak spot to be,” Zane chimed in in agreement.  
  
“Then we aim for the head,” Nya said.  
  
“If we ever catch up to the head,” Kai groaned.  
  
“Zane, try to use your ice cannon to slow it down,” Lloyd said. “It used the jagged scales to push through the sand, right? Well, it won’t be able to get along as fast over something smooth like ice.”  
  
“Aye aye,” Zane replied.  
  
Lloyd glanced down as Zane tried to follow through, but the Devourer was moving too fast. Any ice Zane managed to get beneath it was simply behind it by the time it hit the ground.  
  
“It is beyond my range,” Zane reported after a few minutes.  
  
“Anything we try will just come back to us,” Kai said, sounding frustrated. Lloyd understood the feeling.  
  
“Like spitting into the wind,” Nya observed sagely.  
  
“Gross but accurate,” Skylor agreed.  
  
“If we can’t beat it here we need to save out firepower,” Lloyd said, “and focus all our power on keeping up with it.”  
  
“Once it gets to the city, who do you want to target the head?” Skylor asked.  
  
“Me, Kai, and Skylor,” Lloyd said after a moment’s thought. “Our weapons will be most destructive at close range. The rest of you focus on keeping it from eating and keeping it tangled up in the buildings. This thing is huge, it won’t be able to move half as fast once we get into the city. That’ll be our chance.”  
  
“You got it,” Cole said.  
  
They were silent after that, everybody working the mechs to keep up with the Devourer, which wasn’t even flagging. It plowed through the sand with its incredible speed, forcing everyone to push the mechs pretty hard to keep apace with it. If they fell behind, they might catch up with it too late to do anything.  
  
Lloyd wouldn’t let that happen - lives were at stake. They’d already failed to stop it from getting released. They couldn’t fail a second time.  
  
  
  
The Great Devourer slammed into what Lloyd fervently prayed was an empty building, coming to an abrupt halt as its jaws nearly unhinged so it could begin eating.  
  
“Go time!” Lloyd shouted into his mic, bringing his mech into a looping dive. “It’s now or never, guys!”  
  
Cole was there first, slamming into the side of the snake’s head, knocking it away from the building. The Devourer convulsed and whipped around, headed for another building.  
  
“Remember to tangle it up!” Lloyd shouted. “Tie ‘im into a knot!”  
  
“I’m all over that,” Cole replied. “Jay, zap him!”  
  
Jay swooped over the Devourer, electricity pouring from his jet and striking the Devour as Lloyd flew for the head.  
  
The green dragon’s jaw dropped open and a torrent of greenish fire fell from it, heavy and devastating.  
  
It didn’t seem to do a thing; the Devourer closed its eyes and swung away.  
  
Kai was in front of it waiting with both flamethrowers, bathing its mouth in red-hot fire before darting out of the way.  
  
The Great Devourer slammed into the base of a skyscraper, and the whole thing tilted to the side crazily. Lloyd winced at the levels of collateral damage, but what could they do?  
  
On the plus side, it looked like they were keeping the Great Devourer busy enough to halt it from - well, devouring Ninjago City and all that.  
  
It slammed back and forth between Cole’s fists and Zane’s tank, dove away from Jay’s electricity blasts, writhed out of Nya’s water skimmer’s long limbs. All the while it was hounded by Kai’s flame, Lloyd’s missiles, and Skylor’s swords as the three of them tried to accidentally hit the weak spot.  
  
Slowly, the Devour got more and more enmeshed within the buildings. But no matter what it seemed to wriggle out, smashing through foundations and going right through entire buildings when it wanted too. It was as destructive as a Garmadon attack, come to think of it.  
  
Nya’s mech got crushed between a building and the side of the Devourer, it’s razor-sharp scales slicing into the metal and innards of her machine. Kai immediately left off his frontal assault to go after his sister, shoving the Devourer aside so she could wriggle out.  
  
“Nya, you good?” Lloyd checked.  
  
Nya coughed into the radio. “I’m good,” she said. “Lost some weapons systems but I’ll make it. I still have full mobility.”  
  
“Be careful, sis,” Kai said.  
  
“Promise,” she replied shortly.  
  
Zane’s tank ended up _under_ the snake for a brief few minutes, and during that time he did his best to make use of the position and freeze it to the ground. It actually worked for a few brief seconds, long enough for Lloyd to launch a couple missiles at the top of the Great Devourer’s head.  
  
“Guys!” Kai shouted after the missiles hit. “Did anybody else see that?”  
  
“As in, did anybody else see the whole snake freak out when Lloyd hit the top of his head?!” Cole asked, and Lloyd could hear a smile in his voice.  
  
“I think we might be on to it,” Lloyd grinned. “Kai, Skylor, focus on the top of the head!”  
  
They began focusing on the potential weak spot, but try as they might, they couldn’t get close enough quick enough to make a difference.  
  
“We’ve got to try something else!” Skylor cried, barely avoiding getting eaten by the Devourer. “There must be some way to pin it down long enough to get close!”  
  
_Pin it down,_ Lloyd thought. He frantically glanced around, eyes taking in each ruined building and crumbling bit of concrete. His mind flew back to the building the Devourer had partially knocked over early in the battle.  
  
“Heard it back to the edge!” Lloyd cried. “I need it under that leaning skyscraper - I’m going to drop it on its head. Skylor, Kai, be ready.”  
  
It took some time and some impromptu genius, but they herded the snake until it was racing down the street toward the wrecked building, rubbing against other structures and generally destroying everything in its path in its anger. Despite the terrifying sight of the biggest monster in the world going into a frenzy, Lloyd knew this was good - it wouldn’t be able to think if it was mad, hopefully.  
  
He had to time it right, he had to time it right, he had only one chance. One chance to do this.  
  
Lloyd floored it, sending his mech shooting forward and turning at the last minute, smashing broadside into the remains of the skyscraper as his engines shuddered. It toppled forward, heading for the Devourer, right as he planed-  
  
And caught on the building next to it, grinding to a halt with the loudest screech Lloyd had ever heard.  
  
Unbelievable.  
  
The skyscraper now resembled a bridge, one the Devourer was slithering right under.  
  
The green dragon’s engines coughed and stalled, sending Lloyd plummeting to the pavement.  
  
_No, no, no no NO,_ he thought, or maybe he was shouting it, because it couldn’t end here - Lloyd hadn’t _won_ yet.  
  
He managed to restart the engines but by then he was too close to the ground, which he crashed into. The mech jarred with a resounding crack, slamming Lloyd out of his seat, despite the safety harness, and into the wall, where his head collided with metal and sang with pain.  
  
The Great Devourer froze for a moment and Lloyd was struck with the irony of it - he supposed he’d succeeded, kind of, but in a horribly wrong way.  
  
Kai slammed into the skyscraper from above, collapsing the shell of a building onto the Devourer. Zane was freezing it while Cole struggled to pin its lower body down.  
  
Still, the head reared above Lloyd and the mouth opened, revealing the huge fangs and a red tongue and a dark throat. Lloyd’s eyes widened as he realized he and the very machine he’d tried to use to stop the Devourer would feed it, and it would grow and they’d-  
  
Skylor’s mech slammed into the Great Devourer from above, with enough force to send its skull crashing into the pavement right in front of Lloyd.  
  
When he opened his eyes, the Devourer was dead, and its head was pinned to the street with a massive metal sword.  
  
  
  
They regrouped at the warehouse where they’d build the mechs. Lloyd practically fell out of his, which was sparking ominously.  
  
“THAT WAS SO AWESOME,” Kai shouted, latching onto Skylor in a hug that obviously shocked her by the look on her face.  
  
“Um,” she said.  
  
“Yes!” Jay agred, pumping his fist and tugging his mask and hood off. “You totally kicked that snake’s butt! If, in fact, it has one,” he added, suddenly looking confused.  
  
“Skylor!” Lloyd shouted, finally regaining his senses. “You saved my life!”  
  
“At least I didn’t have to carry you this time,” she smirked, ignoring his red face.  
  
“I can’t believe we did that!” Nya said, ripping on her hood with savage delight. “WE TOTALLY TOOK THAT THING DOWN!”  
  
“I know!” Cole laughed.  
  
“Fight the power,” Zane added, which Lloyd took to mean Zane was happy too.  
  
“We actually did it,” Lloyd grinned. “You guys were so awesome!” he said. “When you jumped on that building, Kai, that was totally unexpected.”  
  
“And when Jay zapped the entire snake at once?!” Cole said excitedly. “That was crazy!”  
  
The seven of them jumbled around each other, amazed at the fact that not only had they survived, but they’d come out of it with minimal damages. Only Lloyd and Nya’s mechs had sustained grievous attacks, but it was nothing they couldn’t fix before-  
  
Lloyd stopped, realizing he was already thinking about doing it again.  
  
Because protecting the city, doing this? It had been the best thing he’d ever done. It felt amazing to know how many people he was helping at once - lives saved, good days made possible, terrible injury averted. Lloyd understood why Uncle Wu seemed like he’d never stop no matter how old he got - the city needed someone to protect it.  
  
And Lloyd found he rather liked the job.  
  
“We did it,” he whispered to himself. And that made it real.  
  
“Guys, we-” Lloyd started.  
  
“Hello, students,” Uncle Wu said, appearing from _literally nowhere, how did he do that and WHY WAS HE HERE OH CRAP-_  
  
Lloyd’s eyes blew wide open at the sight of his uncle.  
  
“Um,” he said. “I can explain.”  
  
“I saw you fight,” Wu said instead, ignoring Lloyd’s obvious panic.  
  
He turned to Lloyd, put a hand on his shoulder. “It seems I was wrong to keep things from you,” Wu said, eyes soft. “You found them out anyways, I see. And I have to admit, you and your friends did a spectacular job.”  
  
Lloyd did a double-take - was he dreaming?  
  
“You aren’t - you aren’t upset?”he asked.  
  
“Oh, I am,” Uncle Wu laughed cheerfully. “You’re doing hundreds of stair sprints for going behind my back.”  
  
Lloyd winced in anticipation.  
  
“But I also want to apologize,” Wu said. “I did not see all of you and I was... wrong.”  
  
He removed his hand from Lloyd’s shoulder, looking to his friends as if he was searching for something. Whatever he was looking for, he smiled when he found it.  
  
“You have all done well. Destiny pulled you together when I could not,” he said.  
  
“We pulled ourselves together,” Nya said, folding her arms.  
  
“Your mechs are incredible,” Wu said, ignoring her interruption. “I have a proposal to make.  
  
“Garmadon grows ever stronger as he attacks the city. You’ve proven that you can do something I cannot - adapt to our enemy in his change. So, if you think you can take it, I want you all to train under me as ninja, so that you may one day defeat the Dark Lord.”  
  
The warehouse was dead silent as his offer sunk in.  
  
Lloyd blinked - this was not where he expected this to go.  
  
“We’ll consider your offer,” Nya said, folding her arms. “We’ll get back to you tonight.”  
  
Wu nodded and disappeared into the night.  
  
  
  
They were once again crowded into a tiny corner booth in a rarely-patronized Chen’s Noodle House.  
  
The table was silent.  
  
“So.” Lloyd said.  
  
Before he could say anything else, the TV flicked on, blaring the voice of a news reporter - shocker, she was reporting the incident of the Great Devourer.  
  
It had attacked a mere hour ago, and the seven of them were in a noodle restaurant with ice-cold glasses of soda.  
  
The reporter talked as grainy security camera footage and zoomed-in photos chronology the fight. There were even a few photos of them - Skylor in her fighting mech, Jay in the cockpit of his jet.  
  
“The hoods and masks were great,” Jay said, keeping his voice low. “We’ve still got our identities.”  
  
“If we join on with Wu, we’ll have to keep them secret,” Lloyd said. “Wu is pretty secretive with locations and stuff. He’s worried about enemies targeting those he allies himself with.”  
  
“I want to do it,” Cole said softly. “I want to mean something when I die. I want to leave my mark on the city.” He grinned. “And it’s going to be in the shape of a single giant tire.”  
  
“Me too,” Jay said next. He didn’t even stutter. “I have a chance to make people feel safer. I can’t give that up.”  
  
“I too would like to continue,” Zane said. “It is a fun group activity.”  
  
“I’ve always wanted to fight my dad,” Lloyd said quietly. “Even if I have to hide my identity. I’m not like him. I’ll prove it.”  
  
“Me too,” Nya said. “ This city needs somebody to protect it.”  
  
“And me,” Kai finally added. “Can’t leave little sis alone,” he kidded, before reaching over and ruffling Lloyd’s hair. “Or my new little bro.”  
  
Lloyd broke into a grin.  
  
Skylor leaned back in her seat. “You guys have fun being ninja,” she said. “I think I’m gonna try working alone, see how it goes.” Skylor smirked, and Lloyd knew she felt the same as the rest of them did. “How do you guys feel about a Samurai watching your backs?”  
  
“Sounds great to me,” Nya grinned, fistbumping Skylor.  
  
  
  
The six of them - Lloyd, Nya, Kai, Zane, Jay, and Cole - went to Wu that night and agreed to train under him.  
  
Skylor winked at them as she flipped onto a rooftop, waving before she disappeared into the night to do FSM-knows-what.  
  
They spent the summer training together. They repaired their mechs and added improvements. They took over Wu’s warehouse as their new base, and the seven of them still trained together.  
  
Garmadon attacked and got a face full of surprise when seven mechs floored his army.  
  
The media went haywire over the ‘seven ninja,’ even though Skylor continued doing her own thing, only working with them when they needed her.  
  
School started back up and they pushed their limits to complete schoolwork and training while still defending the city.  
  
Lloyd still got bullied. But now he had four brothers and a pair of sisters to watch his back and help him up when he fell.  
  
And the taunting didn’t hurt nearly as bad now anyways. No matter what people said, Lloyd was able to smile. Because he knew that even if nobody knew it, or believed it, he was a hero.  
  
He and his friends were the seven lucky heroes.  
  
They saved the city.  
  
And Lloyd was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ignore me while I melt into a puddle worrying about pacing and stuff.  
> Hopefully it turned out ok! Climaxes are always so sudden in my stuff lol.  
> AND IT'S DONE!  
> I really wanted Skylor to save Lloyd at the last minute to bring the narrative full-circle in a way. We started with her and we kind of ended with her too. I also liked the idea of her becoming the movieverse Samurai.  
> The only thing I wish I could have done was have Pixal, I love her a ton but I couldn't figure out how to fit her into the storyline so :')  
> There were several moments in this chapter that I'd had conceptualized since I set out to write this - the moment with the gis, Skylor's samurai choice and her rescue of Lloyd, and the Devourer bursting from the ground.  
> In other notes, thank you guys so much for reading and if you commented it seriously means the world!  
> This is the first Ninjago fic I've written, mostly because I knew once I started I'd ever stop (I was right btw lol I'm working on another one rn called Superheroes.) But posting it here was a last minute choice and one I'm really glad I made, because just the comments I've received in the last few days are the best, and they really make all the work worth it. I had an especially hard day the other day with my college courses, and I was freaking out and having a breakdown but then I got like three comment notifs in the same hour and it totally cheered me up and reminded me that hey, if college doesn't pan out I can still fall back to Ninjago fics, right? Always remember that comments are literally made of gold in the authors eyes <3  
> So thanks again for reading and enjoying it! I'm glad to give something to a community that's been giving to me and helping me through a lot of hard days.  
> Until the next fic! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Let's all admit it guys, Skylor is friggin awesome :D I just thought she and Lloyd would sympathize with each other a lot, especially in the movieverse.
> 
> I read all the highschool fics in the tag so I thought bY DARN I'LL MAKE ONE MYSELF  
> I decided to go a different route then usual, introducing someone other than the Smith siblings first :P  
> Thanks for reading, remember to comment because comments are the best!


End file.
